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My sense is that there is so much pressure in the weather industry to get ad clicks/revenue that it seems that they make speculative events seem more likely and
by boringg 6y ago
My sense is that there is so much pressure in the weather industry to get ad clicks/revenue that it seems that they make speculative events seem more likely and more dramatic. The amount of snow storms that are going to be heavy snow and dangerous condition have been overblown to the point that I don’t believe them until after the snow is down. I recognize the aspect of public safety element of calling storms though there is significant risk of crying wolf. I would never have considered myself someone who would fall into that category but the poor level of accuracy has forced me in that route. I’m suspect of this very dramatic prediction coming through.
For the record I track weather for a multitude of sports are dependent on specific aspects so am close to the forecasting nature.
- simias 6y agoI have a different take on this, I suspect the problem is not necessarily self-serving ad clicks and revenue. I think there's pressure within the scientific community to come up with concrete and tangible threats linked to global warming. Otherwise all you have is stuff like "global temperatures are going to rise by n degrees over the course of the century" with n being a relatively low number for us humans used to local weather having much greater temperature swings. Sure, if we're educated we can understand why this is a huge problem, but for people who don't want to hear this (and may benefit in the short term from not hearing it) "the weather is going to be 5 degrees hotter in a century" doesn't sound all that bad. So in order to cut through some scientists look for more dramatic events that could come as a consequence of this. The problem of course is that the climate is wild and hard to predict over large timescales and sometimes they're wrong, and then the climate change deniers use that as evidence that they're lying.
- boringg 6y agoInteresting take. I would counter and say that climate over the long run is much easier to predict then in the short run. The localized effects, high variability and shorter term impacts are way more challenging. I would say that the impact to global weather phenomenons are might not be well understood though that seems more like local (large local like continent wide) impacts as opposed to general global weather trend.
- simias 6y agoI agree with you, but that was my point, in order to get people to react it's probably more effective to identify more "local" (for a large definition of local) threats. This particular coast is going to be flooded, this particular mountain won't have snow anymore, these particular crops won't be viable anymore, this particular mode of living won't work. But given the chaotic nature of the climate and complex feedback loops these local predictions seem to be hard to make. You can say that some catastrophic events are going to become more common, but you can't say "the 12th of November 2038 a huge storm is going to ravage this country and cause countless deaths and billions of $ in damages, so let's invest this money now to prevent it from happening".
- ImprovedSilence 6y agoI think its a combination of both your thoughts and the OP. Using words like “collapsing” is sensationalist garbage for something that happens most years and instills fear regarding climate change. But now we have names (as in proper nouns) for every small drop of precipitation, thats purely for selling eyeballs. Also missed calls for lots of snow have been a thing forever. The exact line between inches of snow and a little rain or nothing is tough to pin down. I remember 25 years ago being off school because of a big snow that never came. Thats not a new phenomenon.
- egwor 6y agoNote that with global warming the gulf stream can change course and so some countries will actually be cooler (not warmer) in winter.
- bavell 6y agoEngland and Iceland are currently kept much warmer than they otherwise would be by the Gulf Stream, which brings warm waters from the around the Caribbean.
- DeBraid 6y ago100% this. Weather has gone the way of news: sensationalized for clicks. The volume of 'severe weather' risks that turn out as nothing-burgers in the past 5 years is staggering (Southern Ontario, both winter and summer).
- originalvichy 6y agoI don’t know where you live but in Finland the weather forecasts have been a part of tabloid sexy news for a while. People are eager to hear if we will have an early summer or a late winter and so on. There might be a case for doom porn but for me it’s as common as celebrity news.
- LoSboccacc 6y agohere you can always get back to the aviation meteorological service for some actual forecast, but the general meteo news sound like bad fanzine, caps locks included: https://www.ilmeteo.it/ https://www.ilmeteo.it/
- throwaway2245 6y agoThe Daily Express newspaper in the UK is quite famous for regularly having extreme weather on its front pages, and has been for as long as I can remember. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=daily+express+weather&atb=v81-1&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F7a%2F0f%2F0f%2F7a0f0f9f239afd797cc1dc94c5d2d8e6.jpg https://duckduckgo.com/?q=daily+express+weather&atb=v81-1&ia... I've just noticed they use Celsius to make it seem cold and still use Fahrenheit to make is seem hot. (Temperature in Fahrenheit has not been printed by the national weather forecaster since 1970). So, it's not really a new trend.
- randlet 6y agoIn Canada I highly recommend weather.gc.ca which is way less sensational than other sources and has a nice speedy interface.
- esarbe 6y agoAnd yet the hottest 10 years in recorded history are 2009, 2005, 2013, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2017, 2015, 2019, 2016. Yeah. Nothingburger.
- smoyer 6y agoSo the headline should have read "The Polar Vortex over the Arctic is Collapsing and You won't Believe what happens next"
- bb123 6y agoIs there not a government run forecasting service where you are? In the UK the Met office is the only source of whether information I will trust. The rest is click bait.
- kitd 6y agoFunnily enough, that other government-run service, the BBC, no longer use the Met Office for their forecasts. They switched to Meteogroup 2 years ago.
- snickms 6y agoThe BBC is not a government-run service. It is a publicly-owned corporation.
- fhars 6y agoAfter being force by the government to use the lowest bidder: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jan/09/why-competition-doesnt-guarantee-accurate-winter-weather-forecasts https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jan/09/why-competition...
- d0gbread 6y agoYes, in the US there's weather.gov. The govt has a vested interest in settling people down (...usually) and the opposite for the media/weather so I like to bounce between both for larger storms.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoIt snowed heavily in Madrid a couple of days ago for the first time in decades, causing utter chaos. It's around 5C colder than the usual seasonal average where I am. My sense - and the sense of many working in climate science and media monitoring - is that there's a climate change denial industry [1] which is working very hard to lie about the catastrophic effects of developing climate change, and also to shift blame away from those responsible for causing them. [1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-1259-9_4 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-1259-9_...
- linuxftw 6y agoClimate change has always been a thing. The narrative is currently 'global warming' so 'extreme' weather events, even cold ones, are caused by the planet getting hotter. Possibly 'climate change' is 'accelerating' due to this warming, but is that really possible to say? Here's what we know for sure: The topic is highly politicized and used a tool of control.
- tonyhb 6y agoNo, we definitely don't know that it's used as a tool for control. We know for sure that the average temperatures have risen higher in the last 40 years than they have ever before. We know this is not natural. We know that prior to the 70s the world was cooling. Reversing climate change is an aim to make society and the world better as a whole. Not for "control".
- abstractbarista 6y agoTemperatures rising and falling over hundreds and thousands of years is indeed natural. The system is in constant flux, with or without us. Our acceleration of this process by releasing vast quantities of greenhouse gasses in a relatively short period of time, however, is not. Limiting our interference in this natural process will necessitate vast methods and quantities of 'control'. Nevertheless, it should be done. And fortunately, this process will herald a new economic expansion providing jobs and creativity outlets for countless people worldwide.
- heliodor 6y agoPart of that seems to be the use of dramatic vocabulary: "collapsing" "hounds" Or my favorite: "bomb cyclone"
- interestica 6y ago>crying wolf The thing that struck me with the headline was the use of "arctic hounds" as an unnecessary metaphor (to help sensationalize). Now, with your comment, it maybe just seems all too fitting. Metametaphor.
- BlueTemplar 6y agoYou shouldn't trust the headline. The article itself is much more ambivalent.
- interestica 6y agoSeriously. But I think that's the point: get interest/clicks on an inconclusive prediction.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago> I’m suspect of this very dramatic prediction coming through. What very dramatic prediction ? The 'collapsed' arctic vortex, like in 2004 and 2013, might or might not result in the "Beast from the East" in Europe, and its USA equivalent – too soon to tell. As for snow, Spain already had quite exceptional snow.
- maxsilver 6y ago> weather industry to get ad clicks/revenue that it seems that they make speculative events seem more likely and more dramatic. Which is sad, because there shouldn't even be a "weather industry". NOAA / National Weather Service gives away a free weather report to every American for nearly every place in the entire US. There shouldn't be a reliable way to "overhype" weather.