CNN Story on Aussie Storm Chasers

[John Farley]

A storm chaser captures the ‘incredible raw power’ of Mother Nature

Photographer Krystle Wright has spent the past few years chasing supercell thunderstorms in the United States. Her images are spectacular, but they can also serve a greater purpose.

www.cnn.com

 

[Sean Ramsey]

There's a series called "Photographer" on the Nat Geo app and she was one of the six or seven or so photographers that had an episode dedicated to them. The show implied that they had a connection to National Geographic. The CNN story looks to be kind of piggy-backing off the series.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Right at the beginning: “Editor’s Note: The CNN Original Series “Violent Earth with Liev Schreiber” explores the harrowing weather events that are increasingly frequent in our changing climate. It airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.”

Got to love the media always stretching for a way to push the narrative. Not intending to debate climate change, just commenting that CNN is exaggerating the facts. “…harrowing weather events that are increasingly frequent…” is anecdotal at best, and inaccurate at worst, especially in the context of a storm chasing article, considering it’s been 11 years since the last EF-5.

 

[Greg Campbell]

Another (very) good documentary about chasing Australia!

 

[Jason N]

Right at the beginning: “Editor’s Note: The CNN Original Series “Violent Earth with Liev Schreiber” explores the harrowing weather events that are increasingly frequent in our changing climate. It airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.”

Got to love the media always stretching for a way to push the narrative. Not intending to debate climate change, just commenting that CNN is exaggerating the facts. “…harrowing weather events that are increasingly frequent…” is anecdotal at best, and inaccurate at worst, especially in the context of a storm chasing article, considering it’s been 11 years since the last EF-5.

what do you want to bet that there's probably a Quota sheet hanging somewhere that requires so many mentions per week or month of climate anything. Gotta keep banging away at the psychology to instill that messaging in your head. "Climate, Danger, Cataclysm, Species Extinction, Loss of Bee's, 12 years left, with additional Caveats of International Community, UN, IPCC because we want to trust that science of course

 

[Boris Konon]

Right at the beginning: “Editor’s Note: The CNN Original Series “Violent Earth with Liev Schreiber” explores the harrowing weather events that are increasingly frequent in our changing climate. It airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.”

Got to love the media always stretching for a way to push the narrative. Not intending to debate climate change, just commenting that CNN is exaggerating the facts. “…harrowing weather events that are increasingly frequent…” is anecdotal at best, and inaccurate at worst, especially in the context of a storm chasing article, considering it’s been 11 years since the last EF-5.

Not to mention violent tornadoes in the U.S. have been in decline for decades. And it does not matter whether you start in 1950 (start of SPC records for tornadoes), in 1975 (when the F-scale was adopted), or in 2007 (when the EF-scale was adopted), it's all trending down. But never let the facts get in the way of a good story (or agenda/narrative)!

 

[John Farley]

Since people keep bringing up climate change and media "agendas" in a thread that I started because I thought it was an interesting story about Australian storm chasers, I thought I would just throw in a a couple facts that relate to those comments. First, yes, violent tornadoes do seem to be less frequent over time, although some of that could be due to improvements in measurement of tornado damage, i.e. we now know that wind in even violent tornadoes is not as strong as we once thought it was. And yes, there is no real evidence for the claim that climate change has caused any increase in tornado frequency. That said, and second, climate change is very real and while it does not seem to have caused any increase in tornadoes, it has pretty clearly caused increases in heat waves, wildfires, and heavy rain events. It would be so nice if it was possible to post an interesting story on storm chasers without it turning into a politically motivated debate, but I guess that is the age we live in,

 

[Boris Konon]

Since people keep bringing up climate change and media "agendas" in a thread that I started because I thought it was an interesting story about Australian storm chasers, I thought I would just throw in a a couple facts that relate to those comments. First, yes, violent tornadoes do seem to be less frequent over time, although some of that could be due to improvements in measurement of tornado damage, i.e. we now know that wind in even violent tornadoes is not as strong as we once thought it was. And yes, there is no real evidence for the claim that climate change has caused any increase in tornado frequency. That said, and second, climate change is very real and while it does not seem to have caused any increase in tornadoes, it has pretty clearly caused increases in heat waves, wildfires, and heavy rain events. It would be so nice if it was possible to post an interesting story on storm chasers without it turning into a politically motivated debate, but I guess that is the age we live in,

That is a good point about how our standards and practices of how we measure/rate tornadoes has changed over time, and the decline of violent tornadoes, esp., since the pre-F-scale era is probably due to this. However, there are far more DIs out there now than say 50 years ago as to buildings/homes/structures (more "targets") for tornadoes to hit and reveal their winds better. And given recent DOW studies that have suggested that a significant percentage of all tornadoes have EF2 or greater winds at some point in their existence, and instead of ~1% of all tornadoes being EF4-5, it may be actually closer to 10%, we would see some trend up given more DIs, yet the trend is still down. When you drop it to all F3/EF3 or stronger tornadoes in the database, the trend down is the same. These are the facts as we know it, and when facts are glossed over or ignored, that's objectively wrong and not good science.

I don't think the replies to the original post are out-of-line (mods?), as long as we stick to the facts and science. However, I do not think we should avoid the elephant in the room summaily on this forum when it comes to discussing weather and climate b/c it is inexorably tied to what meteorologists and weather enthusiats are asked about a *lot* these days, and convective weather is one phenomena that is front and center. Talking/communicating about it all is a good thing. Debate/dissent in science is how it *advances*, not silencing all debate/dissent. People can agree to disagree and still be friends or at least respect each other.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I don't think the replies to the original post are out-of-line (mods?), as long as we stick to the facts and science.

Maybe I’m too conflicted to comment, since I am a mod and also the one that made the first post mentioning climate change. But in that post I specifically said “Not intending to debate climate change.” My point was only that the media tries to invoke it at every opportunity, whether or not it is appropriate to the context of the story or related to the facts being presented, which in this case it wasn’t. It is frustrating that almost every single weather-related media story feels compelled to say something to the effect of ‘increasingly frequent and/or violent storms,’ blah blah blah… Why can’t the media look at individual events or phenomenon objectively anymore? Journalists ought to be able to avoid confirmation bias. There is also a lot of recency bias, and no attention to decadal cycles, particularly when it comes to reporting on hurricanes.

So yes I see John’s point that he posted it just because it’s interesting and I didn’t mean to detract from that. I think we all enjoy seeing chasing and/or severe weather depicted in mainstream media, but it’s hard not to comment on HOW it is depicted and call out the inaccuracies or misleading aspects, especially knowing that the mainstream audience will just take it verbatim and not understand the facts or the nuances .

 

[Boris Konon]

Maybe I’m too conflicted to comment, since I am a mod and also the one that made the first post mentioning climate change. But in that post I specifically said “Not intending to debate climate change.” My point was only that the media tries to invoke it at every opportunity, whether or not it is appropriate to the context of the story or related to the facts being presented, which in this case it wasn’t. It is frustrating that almost every single weather-related media story feels compelled to say something to the effect of ‘increasingly frequent and/or violent storms,’ blah blah blah… Why can’t the media look at individual events or phenomenon objectively anymore? Journalists ought to be able to avoid confirmation bias. There is also a lot of recency bias, and no attention to decadal cycles, particularly when it comes to reporting on hurricanes.

So yes I see John’s point that he posted it just because it’s interesting and I didn’t mean to detract from that. I think we all enjoy seeing chasing and/or severe weather depicted in mainstream media, but it’s hard not to comment on HOW it is depicted and call out the inaccuracies or misleading aspects, especially knowing that the mainstream audience will just take it verbatim and not understand the facts or the nuances .

"Why can’t the media look at individual events or phenomenon objectively anymore?"

Exactly. Report the news, what has happened or currently happening -- don't endlessly speculate, conjecture, opine, or lecture us on things that may or may not happen, or things that haven't happened yet. The mainstream media format with its short-segmented and fast-track delivery is not the proper outlet to talk about complex, science-based issues that require much context, analysis, and time to understand it all properly. Sifting (dumbing) it down to a "more viewer-friendly, easy for the lowest common denominator to understand" is an insult to the sciences and the scientific process. Getting snippets all the time results in the omission of certain truths and facts, which paints an incomplete or incorrect picture. There are many other venues/outlets available now for discussing the more long-form, complex issues/problems of the day.

 

[John Farley]

The mainstream media format with its short-segmented and fast-track delivery is not the proper outlet to talk about complex, science-based issues that require much context, analysis, and time to understand it all properly. Sifting (dumbing) it down to a "more viewer-friendly, easy for the lowest common denominator to understand" is an insult to the sciences and the scientific process. Getting snippets all the time results in the omission of certain truths and facts, which paints an incomplete or incorrect picture. There are many other venues/outlets available now for discussing the more long-form, complex issues/problems of the day.

Which is probably a good reason to take it as an interesting story about storm chasers, and not to get so excited about an incorrect aside in the article about effects of climate change on tornadoes. I was not even thinking about that aspect when I made my original post, just an interesting story on storm chasers. In general, those with sufficient knowledge to understand academic journal articles will always do better by looking at those than by looking at mass media. The problem is that many people in the general population do not have that knowledge, so must rely on the media. Unfortunately, many who write the media articles do not have that knowledge either, so they misinterpret what is in the journals, don't read enough to know, or worse, use it to promote their own biases. Add to that the opposing political biases of different media outlets, and the sum of all that means that the public does not get a very clear or accurate picture in many instances. And again - another nuance - despite the fact that science does not support the claim in the article about the effect of climate change on tornadoes, it does support effects of climate change on other kinds of problematic weather events

 

[Jamie H]

I can't see this improving going forwards either. The 'right' side of the news will refer to climate haox, scaremongering, stealth green taxes, and so forth, while the 'left' will highlight worst-case scenarios and scary headlines. Both get clicks and views from their audiences and generate online arguments, which is exactly what they need.

It's such a shame nuance and slowly coming to conclusions has all but evaporated from society. Ditching social media and not consuming news regularly helps, but that doesn't stop the things from actually happening sadly...

 

[Sean Ramsey]

Today's website headline. These guys lol.

I'll fix it: Summer Arrives. It'll Be Hot Like it Always Is This Time of the Year.

 

[Boris Konon]

Today's website headline. These guys lol.

I'll fix it: Summer Arrives. It'll Be Hot Like it Always Is This Time of the Year.


View attachment 25941

To break this down a bit. Bit of a rant, but bear with me.

And with the below, I do not bring up climate change at all, so please keep that in mind.

1) This notion of using "millions at risk" -- pure media marketing hype ploy to get clicks and scare people.
"Millions at risk" happens by default always when it is hot, cold, wet, snowy, windy, whatever -- that's what
synoptic-scale systems and patterns do! And the population of the U.S. is 341 million, so why wouldn't
millions *not* be at risk any given day for some type of weather? And "at risk," some level of risk is always
present every day from weather (we live on a hazardous planet). This is nothing out of the ordinary and
the reality of life.

2) Heat dome - merely a repackaged way to say "hot weather" or "heat wave." Changing up the lingo is a
common tactic to again, get clicks and scare people with "new" words and esoteric/arcane weather terms.
"Polar vortex" use in the mainstream starting about 10 years ago was like this. You can call or label whatever
you want, that physically doesn't change what it is.

I have said this, and stand by it -- when it comes to weather these days, the ordinary is turned into the extraordinary.
There is no parsing out of run-of-the mill events that are not so anomalous or just normal, and those that are.
It is just full throttle, to the max all the time. All weather is "extreme" (look the banners at the bottom of the screen
any time weather is a story, you will often see the "extreme weather" label). It is as if no impactful/inclement weather
should not ever occur? What planet are those that think or push this narrative living on?

I get the line often to rebut the above "more alerts/warnings/awareness saves lives and keeps people informed."
This is true, but *only* to a point. More is not always better. There comes a point of diminishing returns. Crying
wolf all the time, and acting like every weather event will be extreme. makes people apathetic and untrusting,
which in turn does harm on multiple levels.

 

[John Farley]

While I agree that the media overhype weather events in general, I would point out that it is a fact that more people die of the heat than of any other weather phenomenon. I think heat is a risk under-appreciated by much of the public. I see people get a lot more excited about even modest snowstorms (which are also hyped by the media) than about heat waves, when the latter pose a much greater risk. This public attitude carries a genuine risk - there have been multiple cases already this year of people going hiking in the heat and not coming back. Despite the tendency of the media to over-hype everything, because that is what gets views, clicks, newspaper sales, etc., heat is a genuine risk that is under-appreciated by many Americans. And frankly, deaths due to heat have been quite undercounted in the past, although there probably has been some improvement in that over time.