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Recently, Dr. Heidi Cullen of the Weather Channel commented about the large divide in knowledge and opinions between meteorologists and climatologists. She was referring to fundamental misunderstandings about the science of global warming made by one broadcast meteorologist referred to by this post by Andrew Freeman. Further down in her post, Heidi not only endorses Freeman’s suggestion that broadcast meteorologists understand the American Meteorological Society’s (AMS) position on global warming and the science behind it, but that gaining such understanding is a prerequisite to having the AMS Seal of Approval. To quote Heidi:

“If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval. “

Clearly I believe this is reasonable that a broadcast meteorologist, one of the only ways science reaches the majority of the public, be well versed in the science of climate change. However, Heidi then tacks the following sentence right after the last one where she sais:

“Clearly, the AMS doesn’t agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns. It’s like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather. It’s not a political statement…it’s just an incorrect statement. “

The linkage between these two sentences has caused a political firestorm. I’m not sure why she didn’t elaborate more and perhaps she regrets not doing so. Either Heidi believes:

1. that every broadcast meteorologist should publically abide by the AMS position on climate change in order to hold the seal,
2. or that they should know the science of climate change to keep the seal regardless of his/her own opinions.

I suspect Heidi believed that there be a demonstrable knowledge of the science by a broadcaster. Afterall, a broadcast meteorologist serves as a reporter and an educator to the public on science issues, especially those relating to the Earth.
Unfortunately, many people perceived Heidi as supporting a program of silencing global warming skeptics that the Bush administration has been doing to its global warming proponents federal employees. What is worse? The ranking minority member of the US Senate committee on the environment and public works, James Inhofe and his “communications director” Marc Morano, got wind of Heidi’s blog and decided to escalate the politicization of this issue with this inflammatory response. Inhofe has been a long time mission to discredit anthropogenic global warming while Marc Morano has helped create the infamous Swift Boat campaign to discredit John Kerry during the 2004 presidential elections.
This little controversey has all sorts of lessons written into it. One lesson is that of communication. Perhaps Heidi should’ve explained herself better to avoid being called a hypocrite, nazi, or unmentionable names. I certainly don’t know what she is implying here, and I could certainly see how others could take this in the worst way. The climate change issue begs for Heidi to give the same level of care in crafting her posts as the Bush administration should be doing when trying to craft policy messages aimed at the Middle East. Actually, I believe Heidi’s got it easier only in that she understand’s climate change better than the administration understands muslims. Heidi could benefit, however, from adult education specialists given her role as educator. I don’t believe she can move this discussion forward until she addresses this controversey. Heidi should quickly dispel the notion that she squashes opinions of climate skeptics. Perhaps there’s a 95% consensus in support of anthropogenic global warming in the scientific community but there may be 5% out there that are being exploited by Senator Inhofe and Mr. Morano. There seems to be a larger percentage of the broadcast community and the public that are struggling to know the truth. They don’t know who they can trust given all the perceived agendas out there. Perhaps most of them don’t perceive that the debate is over. Many of them don’t personally perceive global warming as a threat either. Afterall, most people haven’t been harmed by global warming.

Heidi may want to put herself in the public’s eye. She ought to be able to show that she isn’t a hypocrite. She needs to show the public how global warming can impact them personally.
Links here indicate a rough reflection on the consensus on global warming. It is by no means complete:

Anthropogenic Global warming proponents
IPCC: http://www.ipcc.ch/
RealClimate: http://realclimate.org/
Pew Center: http://www.pewclimate.org/
American Geophysical Union: http://www.agu.org/
American Meteorological Society: http://ametsoc.org/
Representative Nancy Pelosi: http://www.house.gov/pelosi/
The Weather Channel: http://www.weather.com/
Global warming skeptics
Senator Inhofe: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs

Ambivalent blog:
Accuweather: http://global-warming.accuweather.com/