Bullying of meteorologists is sadly not new. Women in the TV sector of our field deal with misogynistic comments about their attire, hair, or looks. Broadcasters face backlash if they interrupt a televised golf tournament or movie to warn the public about impending weather threats. The weather community also faces constant scrutiny about the accuracy of forecasts though most of those narratives are based on perception rather than facts. Climate scientists are also targeted by special interests, trolls, and bots. During Hurricanes Helene and Milton, I noticed an even darker tone to the bullying.
The U.S. South dealt with two major hurricanes that caused widespread fatalities and billions of dollar’s worth of damage. As meteorologists, government officials, and emergency managers faced “life or death” scenarios, social media pages were polluted with misinformation (unintentional) and disinformation (intentional). The head-scratching claims included:
- Hurricanes are not supposed to happen in September or October.
- The government is making or controlling these storms with HAARP, cloud seeding, or chemtrails because they are consecutive.
- Hurricanes do not move towards the east in the Gulf of Mexico.
- Claims of Category 6 hurricanes.
- Unsubstantiated claims about FEMA and federal aid.
Meteorologists were actually being harassed or bullied if they did not affirm or support these claims. Matt Lanza is a very effective meteorologist and communicator in the Houston area. His post above on the platform X countering the “do your own research” cliche went viral. It gets worse. Katie Nickolaou is a meteorologist in Michigan who was on the dangerous end of a social media post threatening her life and other meteorologists. According to The Guardian, Nickolaou’s response was: “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes. I can’t believe I just had to type that.” FEMA officials and workers were also threatened on various platforms.
James Spann is a certified legend in broadcast meteorology. Though based in Birmingham, Alabama, he has a very large national following and is used to the wacky stuff that comes with the business. However, it was clear to me that the sheer volume this time around got to him too. On his Facebook page, Spann lamented a “society full of hate, anger, rage, and the inability to think clearly” after being attacked for debunking conspiracy theories. Like Spann, my perception is that the volume of lunacy and hostility was greater than usual. Heck, someone even shot me a “virtual” bird for simply stating a fact about the National Hurricane Center’s official forecast track for Milton.
Ivan Saric wrote an outstanding piece in Axios detailing the full scope of the bullying and its impact on the mental health of meteorologists and climate scientists. Matthew Cappucci is one of the brightest young meteorologists in our field. I am a big fan of his work. He told Rolling Stone magazine, “Ignorance is becoming socially acceptable.” That’s my concern too. During an interview earlier this week on CNN, the last question the reporter asked me pertained to a claim from a Florida woman that he encountered. In all of my years engaging with national media, I do not recall a question like that. My response was, “Yes, well if it is, I wasn’t tuned in on it when I went to graduate school. And I’ve been the president of the American Meteorological Society. And I’m a member of the National Academy of Sciences. I’m not in on that secret.”
I went on to point out that scientific studies are finding that hurricane intensity and increased rainfall are linked to climate change. Specifically, I said, “But what I will say is human beings, through greenhouse gas emissions, have affected our climate. That — there’s no argument there. And that is leading to warmer waters and warmer atmospheric conditions…. Our currency in science suggests the intensity would certainly respond to that type of water. So that’s all I can say about that.” A recent set of climate attribution studies have tied Helene and Milton to climate change. As a climate scientist, the irony is not lost on me that people used to adamantly lecture me that “humans cannot change the weather or climate.” However, a new generation of hurricanes that scientists like me saw coming has forced an alternative narrative.
In a recent opinion editorial, I tried to give perspective on why people cling to conspiracy theories. Psychology studies have found that it can be “comforting” to translate a complex or daunting problem into oversimplistic narratives. The concept of “belief bias” provides an avenue for people to align anomaly events like COVID or a major hurricane with beliefs, biases, level of comprehension, or circumstances. A 2023 study out of Emory University expands on conspiracy theories even more.
A press release issued by the American Psychological Association noted, “People can be prone to believe in conspiracy theories due to a combination of personality traits and motivations, including relying strongly on their intuition, feeling a sense of antagonism and superiority toward others, and perceiving threats in their environment.” Lead author Shauna Bowles cautioned, “Conspiracy theorists are not all likely to be simple-minded, mentally unwell folks—a portrait which is routinely painted in popular culture…. many turn to conspiracy theories to fulfill deprived motivational needs and make sense of distress and impairment.”
Now let’s debunk the meteorological claims that prompted much of the bullying in the first place. Hurricanes are quite common in September and October all of the time. In fact, September is typically the most active month. Consecutive hurricanes also happen. Recent years such as 2004, 2005, 2012, 2017, 2020, 2023 and this year come to mind. The most active Atlantic hurricane season on record is 2020. It featured thirty named storms and fourteen hurricanes. Just recently, I co-authored a comprehensive report for the National Academies on compound disasters in the Gulf region of the U.S. in 2020 and 2021, respectively. The number of storms crossing the region was numbing.
Though hurricanes typically move from east to west, there are several examples over the past century of storms moving towards the east in the Gulf of Mexico. You can find them in databases like NOAA’s historical hurricane tracks. The Weather Channel website does a good job explaining the upper wind conditions that steered Hurricane Milton. And by the way, Category 5 is sufficient to evoke heighted alert so can we chill out with the Category 6 stuff. I actually would love to see us move away from category completely. It does not properly capture the full scope of potential hazards.
It is important to note that HAARP, weather modification, and cloud seeding are real things, but they are not used for controlling hurricanes. HAARP has been a staple of the conspiracy world for a while. The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program is actually a research project designed to study the ionosphere. The HAARP website stated, “Operation of the research facility was transferred from the United States Air Force to the University of Alaska Fairbanks on Aug. 11, 2015, allowing HAARP to continue with exploration of ionospheric phenomenology via a land-use cooperative research and development agreement.” With recent misinformation and likely anticipating foolishness, the program issued a press release entitled, “Solar storm — not HAARP — creates intense auroral display.” Geez.
Weather modification happens on much smaller scales but should not be conflated with large scale weather processes. The energetics, dynamics, and knowledge are not there to control weather at those scales. Many nations and some private companies seed clouds, but candidly, the scientific literature has long been inconclusive about its effectiveness. Earlier this year, there were inflated claims about cloud seeding causing extreme flooding in Dubai. It didn’t.
Other weather modification efforts include hail or fog suppression. There are even proposals related to geoengineering or climate intervention to reduce global warming, but these efforts have not been tested or operationalized. Candidly, they also carry significant ethical considerations. A few years ago, I explained in Forbes “nuking” hurricanes is a bad idea. By the way, there is also inadvertent weather and climate modification. My own research focuses on ways that cities affect weather and climate. Perhaps the scariest example of inadvertent weather modification and the most likely to affect large scale weather is climate change.
I have spent over 30 years studying meteorology and climate. We take a lot of physics, calculus, thermodynamics, and other complex topics. The atmosphere is a fluid within a rotating frame of reference. Such complexity is far beyond fourth grade lessons about cumulus clouds or cold fronts. As I look at the despair caused to people in the Southeast like farmers, homeowners, and businesses, I wish we could control hurricanes. There are many families that lost loved ones or property. Many communities of color, poor rural areas, and regions with high elderly concentrations receive a disproportionate punch from storms like Helene or Milton. Gosh, I wish we did have the technology to spare them such angst and despair. We don’t.
