Forecasting Denial: Why Are TV Weathercasters Ignoring Climate Change?

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The biggest problem is that most weathercasters are not scientists at all – they just play one on TV. Only half of on-air weathercasters have advanced credentials – often in "broadcast meteorology," a dumbed-down, made-for-TV version of the degree. The rest, like The Today Show's Al Roker, are just TV stars with colorful personalities. And thanks to increasingly sophisticated forecasting technology, you don't need to know much about cloud dynamics to get the job done. "I've never known a meteorologist to get promoted for his or her forecasting skill," says a former network news producer who asked not to be identified.

Nor do weathercasters need to know much about how greenhouse gases are altering the atmosphere to get a coveted stamp of approval from the American Meteorological Society, the gold standard for weathercasters. "There is no requirement for the AMS certification to know anything about climate science," says Jeff Masters, the co-founder and chief meteorologist at Weather Underground, an Internet weather site that is known for its aggressive coverage of climate change. In fact, the AMS itself has been slow to embrace the latest science on global warming. In public statements, the society has long played up uncertainties and natural causes for the earth's warming. Only last August did the AMS finally admit that warming is "unequivocal" and that human beings are "the dominant cause."

Another problem is corporate politics. "Most local TV stations are owned by large corporations like Gannett or Scripps," says Terry Kelly, a former weathercaster and CEO of the forecasting company Weather Central. "Many of these owners have a conservative political bent, and tend to be climate skeptics." At some, like Fox News, the influence is explicit. Others, like the Weather Channel – which is co-owned by Mitt Romney's old firm, Bain Capital – avoided dealing with the issue by simply shutting down its entire climate unit in 2008. "The influence is rarely direct," says a weathercaster who works for a Scripps-owned station. "But it's just clear that if you want to say or do something about climate change, you need to be very careful, because you are likely to hear about it from upstairs."

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