Don’t Know Much About The Weather
Chad Myers is an idiot:
CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers had never bought into the notion that man can alter the climate and the Vegas snowstorm didn’t impact his opinion. Myers, an American Meteorological Society certified meteorologist, explained on CNN’s Dec. 18 “Lou Dobbs Tonight” that the whole idea is arrogant and mankind was in danger of dying from other natural events more so than global warming.
“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”
Now of course it’s true that we’re more likely to die from a lack of fresh water or from ocean acidification than we are to die from the temperature becoming so high that human life can’t exist. But global warming causes lack of fresh water and ocean acidification is, like global warming, caused by human carbon dioxide emissions. If you’re concerned about water supplies and ocean acidification, you need to hop on the climate catastrophe avoidance bandwagon.
49 Responses to “Don’t Know Much About The Weather”
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December 19th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Oh come on! This is such a pertinent scientific argument! Just like the one that climate change can’t be happening because it is arrogance to think man can have that big an affect on the world or even destroy it!
Never mind things like mass extinctions/acid rain/a-bombs.
December 19th, 2008 at 11:35 am
I think it’s just arrogance to think that mankind could cause a hole in the ozone layer, or acid rain, or the extinction of animals, or the depletion of fish stocks, or nuclear holocaust…
December 19th, 2008 at 11:40 am
The Las Vegas snowstorm didn’t change my opinion about global climate change either. The snowstorm is an isolated weather phenomenon, which may or may not have been exacerbated by climate change. But even if not, there’s no doubt that climate change is happening and that our pollution of the atmosphere is making it happen faster and stronger than it otherwise would be.
Like other global warming deniers, Chad is conflating weather and climate. Now, the question becomes: is he doing that on purpose or does he just not know the difference?
December 19th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Climate scientists are in a bit of a quandary. All available evidence suggests that things climate-change-related are *much* worse than previously thought. But they are loathe to admit as much for the simple reason that they have been overly cautious in their projections all this time, precisely to combat allegations by the deniers that they were unduly alarmist. So to the extent they admit now that things are much worse, they risk the deniers saying “see? they don’t know what they are talking about!”.
December 19th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Strictly speaking, global warming converts freshwater into useless saltwater by depleting frozen reservoirs. But point taken.
I think the “arrogant” line of denial stems from the view that humans are separate from nature, either opposed to or above it. Sure, coral reefs can reshape nature, but that’s because they’re part of nature. Humans? Nah!
December 19th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I’ll bet Certified Chad doesn’t worry about any teeny-tiny oncogene flipping one of his cells into uncontrolled proliferation — hey, he’s got billions of ‘em. Or about a barely visible hole in a cerebral artery, or in his 2500-lb car’s brake line.
let’s hope his weather reports don’t get bogged down with insignificant details like the difference between 33 and 31 degrees F. on a rainy night at rush hour.
December 19th, 2008 at 11:46 am
well he was on lou dobbs.
you didn’t really expect him to be right about anything did you?
December 19th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Six Degrees of Warming
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1480669.ece
What one, two, three etc degrees of planet warming will do to our planet. Yes Virginia, it will kill us.
December 19th, 2008 at 11:58 am
So, if a meteorologist who doesn’t understand the difference between climate and weather is an idiot, does that mean a blogger who doesn’t understand the rules of spelling and grammar is an idiot?
December 19th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Question – Isn’t there a war between climatologists and meteorologists on climate change?
I thought that the battle has to do with the way they approach the data.
December 19th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Heat is the #1 cause of weather related death today (see ‘weather death map’ below). A tiny increase in peak temperature and/or average temperature would kill a lot of people. I’m not sure that the most dangerous aspect of global warming isn’t the heat itself.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-12/map-death
I recommend reading ‘Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago’ on the 1995 CHI heatwave by Eric Klineberg. Heat quietly kills a lot of people.
December 19th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
The war appears to be between climatologists, who are scientists who study climate, and meteorologists, who are weathermen employed by the semi-fascistic US media. I’m sorry to have to employ the term ’semi-fascistic’, but after 40 years of moderation I have to admit it’s true.
For example, check out Deroy Murdock’s opinion in today’s Seattle P-I. Murdock, it turns out, is a writer for National Review and Human Events. Chad Myers is just another corporate tool.
Obama may find he’s stumbled into a sort of climate Pearl Harbor here, with an immense worldwide effort needed if we wish to preserve human life on earth. See this report at Climate Progress on increased carbon releases in the Arctic. Things could get interesting around here.
December 19th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Chad is conflating weather and climate.
Of course he is. He’s a weatherman, not a climateman. He’s got a major conflict of interest here, people!
December 19th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I caught this segment on CNN Headline News while drying my hair yesterday (the alternative was people from the Bush administration talking about how great Bush has been on Larry King). The only guests appeared to be Myers and the “science director” of the “Heartland Institute”–because it’d be really hard to find a qualified scientist to be speak to all of the findings that support the existence of climate change. According to the Heartland web site, its science director “Dr. Lehr has spoken before more than 1,000 audience on topics ranging from global warming and biotechnology to business management and health and physical fitness.”
Honestly, my main impression was that this type of segment only undermines CNN’s credibility. I wondered if CNN was embarrassed by Myers. And then I wondered how Lou Dobbs has managed to make a lucrative career out of nothing more than being a contrarian. He’s a parody of himself, always finding something to complain about, legitimate or not.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Shut the fuck up and give me today’s high and low, weatherdouche.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Talk about being arrogant. According to Census’ World Population clock as of about now, the population is:
U.S. 305,916,625
World 6,748,163,626
To think that that many people wouldn’t have an impact on the environment is the height of arrogance and is just plain stupid.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I’m a biological oceanography grad student who just took a “Principles of Climate” class last semester at Oregon State University.
Matt is right about CO2 causing all of the problems, but this moron is missing the first principal argument for global warming:
The sun emits short wave radiation to earth. The atmosphere (composed of water vapor, CO2, and a bunch of other things) is know as a selective absorber, it absorbs long wave radiation and doesn’t absorb short wave radiation.
The short wave radiation goes through the atmosphere, the earth’s surface absorbs it, warms, then emits it again in the form of long wave radiation.
The difference in short and long wave radiation depends on the temperature of the object emitting the radiation (warmer objects emit shorter wavelengths).
This long wave radiation CAN be absorbed by the atmosphere, which warms, then re-emits the long wave back to the earths surface. This causes the earth to heat up more, which is the greenhouse effect (a natural phenomenon).
The problem is that, by the First Law of Thermodynamics, energy is neither created or destroyed, which means what goes in MUST come out. So the energy that comes into the top of the atmosphere MUST go out to space. This means that the earth must heat up to a point where the radiation it emits is of a short enough wavelength that it passes through the atmosphere.
You put more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more heat gets trapped. The guy is an idiot.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Lou ran out of immigrant to beat up on??
In 1977 it snowed in Fort Lauderdale, FL and hasn’t snowed there since; perhaps Myers would find this fact to be proof of global warming?
How does Hurricane Katrina fit into that picture?
Bad levees; and the warmer waters in the Gulf certainly have made hurricanes more intense with more storm surge.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Everyone should read Jesse’s point again and again if they’re not familiar with it.
And they can ask people like “Chad” if they know of any other mechanisms by which the Earth releases Sun-gained heat energy to space if not by means of longwave infrared photons emitted from the top of the atmosphere to space, and if not, how it is possible that additional CO2 in the relevant levels of the atmosphere can possibly not affect the rate at which longwave infrared photons escape to space.
December 19th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Kudos to Jesse for sharing that info. It reflects what I remember from University on the difference between longwave and shortwave radiation and that was back in the early 90s, so not a new concept.
Regarding the insanity of this weatherman’s point of view.
Lets take a pretty small and easy example of the influence of human activities on local weather, the urban heat island from the EPA.
December 19th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Shorter Yglesias: “I know less about weather or climate than this guy, but because he has a different opinion than my obviously correct one, I’ll ridicule him.”
December 19th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Mr. Robertson,
When someone is obviously incorrect, ridicule is a rational response.
December 19th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Re: But global warming causes lack of fresh water
In some localities yes. But overall global warming leads to more fresh water and higher precipitation (which is not necessarily good, since that can mean more flooding, including disastrous flooding).
Eras of global cooling have also been eras of desertification, because more water is locked up in ice and evaporation decreases. Global warming releases water from frozen state and leads to more more rain. A picture of a flooding Misissippi (or Danube, or Yangtze, or Indus…) is more likely to be iconic for global warming than a picture of the Sahara. In fact the latter desert may even revert to its warm-Earth state of a grassy savanna dotted with shallow lakes.
Re: In 1977 it snowed in Fort Lauderdale, FL and hasn’t snowed there since
That’s one of those once-a-century events. I think the last time before then that coastal S Florida had measurable snow was in the 1880s.
Though last January right after New Years I did have garden plants suffer frost damage in Fort Lauderdale.
December 19th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I’ll bet non of you eco freaks know that the theory of sustained global warming from the “theory” concerning life giving CO2 is one year short of being A QUARTER OF A CENTURY OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!! So for all you glowbull whiners out there that think a few years is not long enough, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,GET REAL.
December 19th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
James Robertson: “Chad” is not a scientist. Scientists are saying different things about climate than him. He’s a weather announcer. That’s not a scientist. Tacking an “ologist” ending on it doesn’t make one a climate researcher.
December 19th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
How does Hurricane Katrina fit into that picture?
Bad levees; and the warmer waters in the Gulf certainly have made hurricanes more intense with more storm surge.
New Orleans’ problems have more to do with subsidence of sediment that has not been renewed for decades due to the channelization of the Mississippi delta. Its another grade A example of humans fucking with natural systems in unwise and unsustainable ways, but it’s not really about global warming.
December 19th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
but [Katrina]’s not really about global warming.
Well, it may or may not be. Higher ocean temperatures are likely to produce more frequent and more virulent hurricanes. So although we can’t be sure that Katrina is the product of global warming, it is consistent with it.
December 19th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
But DMonteith, the people along the gulf coast of Mississippi might have another view. As to New Orleans, you certainly have a point.
December 19th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
People who refuse to look at the physics should STFU. Not surprisingly, if you look at the physics, the heat gained from the increase in GHGs is sufficient to have caused the observed increase in temps. Same physics as the stuff behind the hydrogen bomb.
December 19th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
So although we can’t be sure that Katrina is the product of global warming, it is consistent with it.
Agreed. But a direct hit by any garden variety strong hurricane unrelated to higher temperature trends would have spelled trouble for N.O. because it’s sinking. Ironically, what N.O. needs is lots and lots more floods that can rebuild the silt it’s sitting on.
December 20th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Hurricanes benefit from warmer water. They also get knocked down from horizontal wind shear. For example, El Nino is bad for a hurricane because of this wind shear.
Hurricanes could also be part of warm water mixing in the deep ocean, bringing warm water deeper than it usually gets and transporting it up north into the region where thermohaline circulation begins. Some say it’s bunk, but fun to think about.
December 20th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Chad Myers has a bachelor’s degree in meteorology from the U.Nebraska. He holds the “Seal of Approval” from the American Meteorological Society (professional association), which is the lowest level of certification allowing someone to call himself “meteorologist”. This merely recognizes the person’s “sound delivery of weather information to the general public”. It says nothing about expertise. The next higher designation is to be a “Certified Broadcast Meteorologist” which additionally requires exams and a judgment by the society that the person is competent and understands the scientific and environmental issues. See http://ametsoc.org/amscert/index2.html#cbm for a complete description.
But neither of these describes someone who would be called a “meteorologist” in academia or a government lab, whose work might well verge into climate problems and who would be considered an expert familiar with the scientific literature and qualified to comment on climate change issues. Of course, while there are many examples of broadcast meteorologists who are climate change deniers, there are very very few research meteorologists who do so.
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