WASHINGTON — Jim Gandy is the chief meteorologist on WLTX in Columbia, S.C., and makes a point of incorporating links between bad weather and climate change into his daily broadcasts.
“In Columbia, the only thing that separates us from hell in the summertime is a screen door,'’ he said in an interview. “And all of the climate models indicate that it’s going to get worse if we don’t do something about it.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Gandy was among eight weather broadcasters invited to interview President Obama and spend the day at the White House.
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From Al Roker of the “Today” show to local weathermen and women from Chicago, Miami, Seattle and other cities, the handpicked guests were there, the administration hoped, to spread the word contained in a landmark new report, the National Climate Assessment, that the warming climate is causing sweeping change across the United States.Polls show that local television weathercasters are among the most trusted media figures, but there is a deep divide between those who accept the link between human activities and global warming and extreme weather and those who do not. A 2011 study by George Mason University found, for example, that just 18 percent of American television weather broadcasters believe the established science that human activities, specifically burning fossil fuels, contribute to global warming.The broadcasters at the White House on Tuesday not only accept the link, a number of them also prepare their climate-focused broadcasts with help from Climate Central, a New Jersey-based nonprofit group that creates graphics intended to convey the local impact of climate change for about 100 television stations across the country. Some Climate Central scientists were among those invited Tuesday to the White House.
Also there was John Morales, who delivers weather forecasts on WTVJ in Miami and covers weather disasters for the Spanish-language Telemundo.
“Recently we’ve had extreme weather events, like the strong rains in Pensacola and Tampa,” Mr. Morales said in an interview. “In January, Palm Beach County got 22 inches of rain in eight hours. That’s a once in a thousand-year event. I mention on my broadcasts that the propensity for climate change will increase with these events.”
Although Mr. Obama has given several speeches about climate change, a Pew Research Center poll this year showed that Americans rank climate change 19th out of 20 in importance on a list of policy issues.
The strategy of using local weathercasters to spread the word is in keeping with other White House efforts to use nontraditional media outlets to get policy messages out, said Jennifer Palmieri, the White House communications director.Trusted messengers are hugely important,'’ Ms. Palmieri said. “No one thinks these meterologists have an agenda.”
This week was not the first time a White House has tried to use local weathercasters to deliver a message on climate change. During the Clinton administration, Vice President Al Gore invited weathercasters to broadcast a climate change event from the White House South Lawn.
But Paul Bledsoe, who was a top climate change communications official in the Clinton White House, did not recall it fondly.
“It was a complete disaster, and it backfired,” Mr. Bledsoe said. Mr. Gore forced the weathercasters to watch his slideshow on global warming, he said, and then lectured them for failing to talk about climate change in their broadcasts.
Mr. Bledsoe said that the current White House massaging of weathercaster may meet with more success — in part because the new report indicates that climate change is now having a more measurable impact on weather than it did in the 1990s.
Mr. Gandy of WLTX in South Carolina, for one, does not need much convincing. Last year he reported on research from Duke University linking increased carbon content in the atmosphere to a stronger outbreak of poison ivy in the Columbia region.
“That was a real eye-opener,” Mr. Gandy said, adding that the segment got a huge audience response.
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