In the coming fall I will be pursuing my passion and career as a meteorologists at California University of Pennsylvania. As I approach the end of my senior year, many family members, family friends, friends, and adults have asked me the very innocent question, “What are your plans after high school?” or “What are you doing next year?”. I passionately respond that I am going to school for meteorology to pursue research. After I state this I hear responses such as “good for you”, “Oh, you want to be on TV”, “sounds interesting”, and “good luck”, and all the other generic college congratulatory remarks. However, I often hear the comments many meteorologists are jabbed with: “It must be nice to be 30% right and still get paid”, “I wish I could screw up at my job and not get fired”, “You have the best job, you can be completely wrong and still get paid”, and all variations of these listed above comments you can imagine. I typically just politely smile at the person who said these fighting words, and move on, however the more I think about these words my internal atmosphere becomes rather unstable.
Although I, like many professional meteorologists, know that these comments are small jokes, it does bother me that the public, or at least a mass of the public hold a common perception that meteorologists just cannot be correct with their forecasts. Maybe I am getting too defensive, but listen to me when I say meteorologists have the burden to predict the unknown. It is not an easy task, nor is the countless hours of physics, calculus, differential equations, exponential mathematics, and chemistry easy to comprehend and learn. Meteorologists take their jobs very seriously as they are essentially the ‘spokesman’ for the weather and an elit...
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...recast predicted by the meteorologist yielded roughly 76%-88% accuracy. These percents are within the accuracy limits the NWS suggests. So who is in fault the mayor or the meteorologists? In summation, meteorologists, are often confronted with jeering comments such as “You have the best job; you can be completely wrong and still get paid.” Recently, such comments have stirred me, and me think of reasons to prove these comments inconclusive. Meteorologists are ground-breaking scientists predicting the ever difficult future, well educated scientists with curriculums similar if not exactly the same as engineers, and meteorologists face the hardships with human natures foils such as selective listening and the disillusionment of perception.
In the article “Climate of Complete Certainty” by Bret Stephens, he argues upon the topic that politicians exaggerate scientific certitude to benefit themselves. Stephens uses Clinton’s campaign loss and the climatic debate as illustrations to show that scientific fact doesn’t always give the defining factor of gains or losses. As stated by Stephens, Brexit showed the Clinton campaign that the populist tide causes a major surprise factor when determining the end result. With this example in mind, Stephens conveys that the end result strayed away from absolute certainty. Another instance in which scientific certitude is altered is within the topic of climate change.
Lindzen begins his piece by asserting that there isn't, and never will be, static, unchanging climates on planets with fluid envelopes. Throughout this article, he ponders why there has been an increase in alarm over climate change in the past few years. At the beginning of the article, he states that the increase in alarm is because the public has become scientifically illiterate, which, in turn, makes them more susceptible to being taken advantage of by people of higher status. He continues on by saying that the panic over climate change is falsely placed and that the climate is and has constantly been changing over time. He gives supportive examples of this through climate changing events that have occurred throughout the centuries. Also, according to Lindzen, findings on climate change are problematic because they are based on computer models. He claims that the data conflicts with the models, and that scientists “correct” the data to agree with the models, which points to some level of corruption in climate science. Although Lindzen does give reasons that he believes climate change may be over exaggerated, he keeps going back to another reason. Throughout the article, he ind...
This was very evident last week. The weather report was calling for overnight temperatures to be in the low twenties accompanied by rain. The low temperatures and rain were going to become a big headache for the Texas Department of Public Safety, otherwise known as DPS. Many of our highways are elevat...
So, while your expectation of rain did come true, it did not come true because you expected it to. Again, the expectation itself has to cause some change in behavior to make the expectation come true.
Predicting climate change is less accurate than firing a pistol at long range. The fact is, finding a forecast of our future is just as difficult as explaining the meaning of life. I mean, how can we predict the future climate when meteorologists can’t even predict today’s weather? Scientists have only been keeping exact records of the earth’s surface temperature for only just over a hundred years.# Before accurate readings of the earth had been taken, scientists have only viewed charts and graphs of recent years. Patterns have been formed from these short-term graphs. But how can scientists be sure that their trend is true? What proof do we have anyway?
When people are younger everyone always ask what do you want to be when you are older? Of course when it is children everyone is filled with wonder about their answer whether it’s a model, astronaut, race car driver, etc. Now that I’m older it’s expected for me to know exactly what to do with my life and how to do it. I realized very soon that I sometimes can be an indecisive person when it comes to life-long decisions. This being a huge decision in one’s life you could only imagine how many times I’ve changed my idea on what to go to school for. Although, changing my mind become a norm, I eventually decided a degree in business/marketing is the right path for me. What are my career and educational goals, what will my job would be like, and
Climatologists are scientist who study climate. The global warming debate has created tension between climate scientist and meteorologists especially weather forecasters on television. Climatolo...
As human-induced climate change is projected to occur in a very short time, it is essential to analyze and know the effects that the climate change will bring. Policy makers aim at making decisions that will have lasting effects in the reduction of global warming. However, it becomes difficult as uncertainties deem these efforts by policy makers as insufficient. Debates among policy makers and scientists on the level of acceptable certainty or uncertainty have taken root. The main question everyone in the society seeks answers is “how can science be trusted to project climate change when the results are incomplete or inconclusive?” this has been the main challengers that decision makers face. In response to this, the policy makers end up taking into consideration two options. They include reducing the effects of uncertainty, and bounding the uncertainty. Uncertainty can be reduced by strategies such as research, data collection, simulation, modeling, among others. However, reducing uncertainty becomes difficult, considering all the uncertainty associated with global environmental changes. Scientists end up managing uncertainty, which is viewed as the most effective strategy. This entails including and integrating uncertainty when making
"Beyond Bias and Barriers, and Implications for the Society." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 91.7 (2010): 954-. ProQuest. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.
Many people in this world want to make a difference in life. However, most people do not want to put in all the effort that it takes to do so. The job of a pediatrician is life-changing to many. Unfortunately, it takes drive and effort that many people do not have, to become a pediatrician. A pediatrician’s job is a highly-skilled and interesting job because he or she has the privilege to deal with and help as many children as possible.
My Career The career field I chose is to be a firefighter. The reason why I want to be a firefighter is because they help people and prevent fires from spreading. I’ve always wanted to help people everywhere, because I don’t like it whenever there is an accident and some people die and lose their loved ones, people talking crap about them and just talking and pointing the cameras in their face watching them cry. I want to help people and make a difference and help protect people’s lives, and be someone people recognize when I walk by them.
Four NOMAD buoys across the North Atlantic registered a 13-degree drop in SST. And soon a series of extreme weather happened in front of my eyes: hurricanes, snow storms, and even cyclones that rapidly pulled cool air from the upper troposphere which made people freeze instantly. Those were the scenes I saw from The Day after Tomorrow, the film that inspired my curiosity in atmospheric sciences in my seventh grade. Although shocked by the catastrophe caused by global warming in the film, I couldn't help take an eager interest in how freshwater from melted polar ice caps brought a shift in the North Atlantic Current, and how the shifted current brought a change in the earth’s climate. Later, as I gathered more information about the climate, I became fascinated by the physical and dynamical mechanisms explaining atmospheric phenomenon. And after three years of undergraduate study of atmospheric sciences, beyond the starting point of fascination, I have taken concrete steps forward with my hard work, independence, and creativity.
Weather Delays. We seem to have heard so much more about them in recent years. Is the weather
7 The average work schedule for a meteorologist is a 24 hour day (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Since no person can control the weather, we can not accurately forecast the weather. This means meteorologists have the possibility of having a wacky work schedule due to weather impacting at any moment. Meteorologists generally work on holidays and weekends (OKCollegeStart.org). 11 A meteorologists’ work schedule is disheartening to me as it robs you of time with your family. Another negative conclusion about meteorology is the safety conditions. 8 Depending on where you branch out in meteorology, you could see a great amount of hazards or none at all. The only safety hazard for meteorologists are those who choose to be storm chasers, who live in the action. Otherwise, the only injury you may suffer is a paper cut while analyzing data (Meteorologist). 10 When I think positively about meteorology, I imagine how I would feel coming home everyday knowing that I made a difference telling others about likely dangers and how to stay safe (Bureau of Labor
...ms using all the information they can obtain from weather maps, modern weather radar’s, storm spotters, monitoring power line breaks, and so on.