Obama Taps TV Meteorologists to Roll Out New Climate Report

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In this April 3, 2014 file photo giant machines dig for brown coal at the open-cast mining Garzweiler in front of a smoking power plant near the city of Grevenbroich in western Germany.

Image: Martin Meissner/Associated Press

By Andrew Freedman2014-05-05 16:23:53 UTC

The White House is planning to release a major new climate science report on Tuesday, which states unequivocally that global warming is already causing a wide range of harmful impacts across the United States. While the report is significant on its own, so too is the way the White House plans to roll it out.

According to people with knowledge of the White House's plans, as well as Facebook and Twitter posts, eight television meteorologists are slated to have rare one-on-one interviews about global warming with President Barack Obama on Tuesday. This comes soon after the president sat down with a crew from Showtime's documentary series "Years of Living Dangerously" for an hour-long interview on climate change. That interview is scheduled to air sometime in the next few months.

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The list of eight participants in Tuesday's interviews includes Al Roker, co-anchor of NBC's Today Show; John Morales, chief meteorologist of NBC 6 in Miami, Florida; Jim Gandy, meteorologist of WLTX-TV in Columbia, South Carolina; and Ginger Zee, meteorologist on ABC's Good Morning America.

Observed temperature change across the U.S. during the past century.

Image: Draft National Climate Assessment

A broader group of TV meteorologists and other key "stakeholders" who will play a part in communicating the findings of the National Assessment will be given access to senior White House officials in a larger event scheduled for Tuesday afternoon in Washington.

The White House's reliance on TV weathercasters to communicate news from climate science findings may be a new tactic for this administration, but it harkens back to the Clinton administration. Former president Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore tried that approach in 1997 when they invited dozens of TV meteorologists to an event in Washington, D.C.

However, their efforts largely backfired when many participants viewed the event (and the subject matter) as too politicized, and thus grew more skeptical about the existence or severity of manmade global warming. Many TV meteorologists remain climate change skeptics, in part because they are skilled at forecasting weather over short time periods, which can make them doubt long-range projections from climate science computer models. Many TV meteorologists also lack specific training in climate science.

On the other hand, TV meteorologists are typically the only scientists that most Americans encounter on a daily basis, and polls show they are broadly viewed as trustworthy messengers of science content. This makes them attractive conduits for conveying climate science findings, which the White House clearly recognizes.

In recent years, as the science on climate change has solidified, more TV meteorologists have started airing climate information during their weather broadcasts. For example, WTLX's Gandy has worked with academics and a non-profit group to produce and broadcast climate segments in his market, and was recently given an award by the American Meteorological Society for doing so.

It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration, which is just as politically polarizing as the Clinton administration (if not more so), will be warmly welcomed by the TV weather community.

Tuesday's report is the third National Climate Assessment to be produced by an interagency committee with public input. The second such report was published in 2009, and this new version contains updated scientific findings and projections.

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Topics: Climate, climate science, Politics, tv meteorologist, U.S., US & World, White House