Climate Matters. Jim Gandy Chief Meteorologist News19 WLTX

Transcription

1 Climate Matters Jim Gandy Chief Meteorologist News19 WLTX

2 CLIMATE MATTERS A partnership with Center for Climate Change Communication, at George Mason University Climate Central, Princeton WLTX-TV, Columbia

3 CLIMATE MATTERS Authors Xiaoquan Zhao, Ed Maibach, Jim Gandy, Joe Witte, Heidi Cullen, Barry Klinger, Katherine Rowan, James Witte, & Andrew Pyle Published: January 2014 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Zhao, Xiaoquan, and Coauthors, 2014: Climate Change Education Through TV Weathercasts: Results of a Field Experiment. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 95,

4 Problem Despite the prevailing scientific agreement that global warming is happening, only a minority of Americans believed that most scientists think that global warming is happening. Leiserowitz, A et. al (2010)

5 Climate Matters Need to inform viewers about global climate change. Need to explain how local climate change will impact them. Drought (Becoming more frequent) Floods (Intense Rainfall) Sea-level rise Heat waves Mitigation & Adaptation

6 What challenges do TV meteorologists face if they want to do a story about climate change? Lack of Air Time Lack of Production Time Lack of Scientific Certainty Lack of Management Support Lack of Graphics Negative Viewer Calls Lack of Knowledge Lack of Trusted Information

7 What challenges do TV meteorologists face if they want to do a story about climate change? Lack of Air Time Lack of Production Time Lack of Scientific Certainty Lack of Management Support Lack of Graphics Negative Viewer Calls Lack of Knowledge Lack of Trusted Information

8 A national survey found that 96% of broadcast meteorologists who are interested in reporting on climate change (64% of all broadcast meteorologists) felt that access to high quality graphics and animations for use on-air would improve their ability to report on climate change. Jan 2010 Survey of 1,370 TV Meteorologists

9 Solution? 30-:40 second segments to be used in weathercasts. pre-produced climate science/climate change segments to be used on websites or other presentations.

10 :30 Story Elements Scripts: ~ 100 words or ~ 5 sentences. Images/video: worth 1,000 words. Graphics: don t make the viewer work too hard on graphics.

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12 Segments July was Hot and getting Hotter Extreme Heat will increase in Columbia Weather vs Climate August was Hot and getter Hotter Summer Heat Stronger Hurricanes Heavy rains connected to global warming

13 Is Climate Change Real? Poison Ivy & Climate Change Are We Having An Effect? Heat Increase = More Unhealthy Air Climate Change & Heat Mortality Frequency & Intensity of Droughts Increasing Global Weirding

14 Example on the website.

15 Example of my blog.

16 Would It Work? Pre-test Survey of 1,000 people, Columbia, SC Post-test Survey of same 1,000 people plus survey of an addition 800 new people to rule out threats to internal validity

17 Timeline May July 2010 Pre-test Survey August 2010 June 2011 Climate Matters segments July December 2011 Post-test Survey

18 Challenges State Fair 2010 Elections November Ratings Period Switch to HD Snowstorms New Website (Blog deleted for 9 weeks)

19 Hypotheses #1: WLTX viewers will demonstrate greater learning gains about climate change than will viewers of other local TV stations (i.e., there will be a learning effect). #2: Frequent WLTX viewers will demonstrate greater learning gains than will less frequent viewers (i.e., there will be a dose-response relationship). 19

20 Summary of Findings After the 1 st year of Climate Matters, WLTX viewers were more likely to hold certain beliefs consistent with the state of climate science There is some support for hypothesis #1 Self-reported exposure to Climate Matters was positively associated with a wide range of beliefs consistent with the state of climate science There is strong support for hypothesis #2 20

21 New Climate Matters Webpage

22 NEW 2 CLIMATE MATTERS WEBPAGE

23 My New Blog

24 MY NEW 2 BLOG

25 CLIMATE MATTERS Jim Gandy Chief Meteorologist, CBM WLTX News19, Columbia, SC Website: wltx.com (Climate Matters) Blog: Weather & Climate Matter (weatherclimatematter.blogspot.com)