Conflict about Climate Change at the American Meteorological Society: Meteorologists’ Views on a Scientific and Organizational Controversy

Abstract

This article analyzes open-ended survey responses to understand how members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) perceive conflict within the AMS over global warming. Of all survey respondents, 53% agreed that there was conflict within the AMS; of these individuals who perceived conflict, 62% saw it as having at least some productive aspects, and 53% saw at least some unproductive aspects. Among members who saw a productive side to the conflict, most agreed as to why it was productive: debate and diverse perspectives enhance science. However, among members who saw an unproductive side, there was considerable disagreement as to why. Members who are convinced of largely human-caused climate change expressed that debate over global warming sends an unclear message to the public. Conversely, members who are unconvinced of human-caused climate change often felt that their peers were closed-minded and suppressing unpopular views. These two groups converged, however, on one point: politics was seen as an overwhelmingly negative influence on the debate. This suggests that scientific organizations faced with similar conflict should understand that there may be a contradiction between legitimizing all members’ views and sending a clear message to the public about the weight of the evidence. The findings also reinforce the conclusion that attempts by scientific societies to directly address differences in political views may be met with strong resistance by many scientists.

Reporting on Climate Change by Broadcast Meteorologists: A National Assessment

“…In the 2000s, with the rise of websites and blogs, news stations' websites and weathercaster blogs became another modality for climate change reporting (Wilson 2009). Weathercasters now also include climate change information in their on-air forecast, longer news stories, and posts on social media (Maibach et al 2017). Climate change reporting by weathercasters often, but not always, includes explicit references to climate change; some weathercasters prefer to present historical trend data (e.g., temperature trends), but omit the phrase "climate change" or "global warming" (Bloomberg News 2017).…”

“…Weathercasters also feared negative feedback from viewers (Henson 2010;Maibach et al 2011;Meldrum et al 2017). Some weathercasters avoided climate change reporting to stay out of the broader conflict that had emerged within their professional community on the topic (Wilson 2012;Stenhouse et al 2017).…”

“…Over the past decade, however, many of these barriers have been reduced or alleviated (Maibach et al 2016). Weathercasters' understanding of climate change has evolved rapidly (Maibach et al 2017): they are now more aware of the scientific consensus (Perkins et al 2020) and their views are now more closely aligned with those of climate scientists (Maibach et al 2017). Climate change reporting resources that simplify the preparation of climate change stories are now freely available (Woods Placky et al 2016;Perkins et al 2018) and sustained efforts have been made to use training and peer modeling to show how climate change information can be presented within the weather segment (Maibach et al 2016).…”

CO2has significant implications for hourly ambient temperature: Evidence from Hawaii

“…The implicit assumption associated with this approach is that meteorologists do not explicitly take CO 2 levels into account when forecasting weather. If they did, the issue of CO 2 's effect on hourly temperature would not be a matter of contention within the meteorological profession (Stenhouse et al, 2017).…”

An Interactive Online Course in Climate and Climate Change: Advancing Climate Literacy for Non–Atmospheric Science Majors

“…Despite substantial efforts to improve the general public's climate literacy as well as knowledge about the threats of climate change, a large fraction of the U.S. population remains either unconvinced that climate change is a phenomenon that humans should take seriously (Conca 2019; Yale Program on Climate Change Communication 2020) or does not understand the underlying facets explaining climate change (Ungar 2000;Somerville and Hassol 2011;Mittenzwei et al 2019). Professional societies, including the American Meteorological Society, have to carefully promote scientific debate related to climate literacy and climate change without being perceived as biased or politically motivated (Stenhouse et al 2017).…”