Climate science and the broadcast meteorologist

A national survey has found that 54% of Americans watch local television news for most of their weather information. In addition, television weathercasters are increasingly viewed as station scientists, called on to provide information to their viewers on a wide variety of science related issues, including climate science and climate change. The stated goal was to empower weathercasters by enhancing their ability to deliver climate science to their audiences while also building lines of communication between broadcasters and climate scientists. Weathercasters from 31 television stations were invited, representing all television markets in Pennsylvania as well as Youngstown and Steubenville, Ohio, and Elmira and Binghamton, New York. Global climate models (GCM) were then discussed by Keith Dixon (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). He focused on GCM structure and skill and the use of GCMs for understanding past climate variability and for making future projections.