A survey of television weathercasters conducted by George Mason University researchers shows that two-thirds are interested in reporting on climate change, and more than half are skeptics of the phenomenon.
The survey comes at a time when only a handful of TV news stations employ a dedicated science reporter.
Ultimately, the team hopes to turn TV meteorologists nationwide into a reliable source of informal science education about climate change.
"Our surveys of the public have shown that many Americans are looking to their local TV weathercaster for information about global warming," says Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication. "The findings of this latest survey show that TV weathercasters play—or can play—an important role as informal climate change educators."
According to the survey, climate change is already one of the most common science topics TV weathercasters discuss—most commonly at speaking events, but also at the beginning or end of their on-air segments, on blogs and web sites, on the radio and in newspaper columns.
Weathercasters also indicated that they are interested in personalizing the story for their local viewers—reporting on local stories such as potential flooding/drought, extreme heat events, air quality and crops. About one-quarter of respondents said they have already seen evidence of climate change in their local weather patterns.
"Only about 10 percent of TV stations have a dedicated specialist to cover these topics," says University of Texas journalism professor Kristopher Wilson, a collaborator on the survey. "By default, and in many cases by choice, science stories become the domain of the only scientifically trained person in the newsroom—weathercasters."
Many of the weathercasters said that having access to resources such as climate scientists to interview and high-quality graphics and animations to use on-air would increase their ability to educate the public about climate change.
61 percent of those survyed feel there is a lot of disagreement among scientists about global warming. Though 54 percent indicated that global warming is happening, 25 percent indicated it isn't, and 21 percent say they don't know yet.
"A recent survey showed that more than 96 percent of leading climate scientists are convinced that global warming is real and that human activity is a significant cause of the warming," says Maibach. "Climate scientists may need to make their case directly to America's weathercasters, because these two groups appear to have a very different understanding about the scientific consensus on climate change."
The George Mason team will next conduct a field test of 30-second, broadcast-quality educational segments that TV weathercasters can use in their daily broadcasts to educate viewers about the link between predicted (or current) extreme weather events in that media market and the changing global climate.
