After the remnants of Hurricane Ida dumped historic levels of rain in the Northeast last year, ABC News' chief meteorologist, Ginger Zee, stood in front of a collapsed bridge in New Jersey and gave viewers of Good Morning America.
Global warming doesn't cause storms like Hurricane Ida to happen in the first place. The warmer ocean temperatures make them more destructive.
She said that extreme events that would have already happened are going to become more extreme.
The job of a TV weather reporter is changing.
For decades, the men and women taking their best educated guess about the weather provided a respite from grim news reports. Before he became the most prominent weatherman of the 1980s on NBC's Today Show, he had played Ronald McDonald and Bozo the Clown.
The most serious story of our time is being tracked by Ms. Zee and her colleagues. TV meteorologists have become more visible in viewers' lives because of the destructive weather. In the last few years, they have often gone out of their way to remind viewers that climate change is a real and disruptive force that has put lives and the environment at risk.
As a scientist and someone who understands the atmosphere, I have a deep connection to climate science.
In October, CNN's Van Dam reported on the link between climate change and migration crises. The Weather Channel increased its coverage of climate change last summer. Local broadcasters are no longer avoiding the topic.
Jeff Berardelli, who moved to NBC's Tampa affiliate in November after time as a national, said that during the weathercast, you want to give people what they're looking for.
Warming waters off the Northeast are thought to be the cause of more frequent winter weather events. Mr. Berardelli said that the storm a thousand miles away could be related to the freezing temperatures in the Bay area.
Al Roker, the weather and feature anchor of NBC's Today show, said that NBC News has a weather unit.
The unit offered more than 50 segments that concerned climate change in the year 2021, compared with 20 in 2019.
The 25th anniversary of a summit at the White House of more than 100 national and local television forecasters is this year. Clinton hoped that they would communicate the realities of global warming to the public.
Many of the climate scientists interviewed for this article said the trend of weather personalities broadcasting frankly about man-made global warming was more recent, as the consequences of climate change have grown starker. The topic has remained divisive, with many conservatives dismissing the scientific consensus.
Amy Freeze said that Fox Weather acknowledged the issue when it started in October. The channel was going to take over Fox Business's airtime on Saturday morning and afternoon, as well as one early-morning hour on Fox News. She admitted that the topic is fraught in the political arena.
Ms. Freeze said that their job is to help people live better and to give them information and tools they can use in the here and now.
James Spann, a meteorologist at ABC's affiliate in Alabama, wrote in a Medium article last year that he mostly avoids explicit mentions of climate to avoid alienating some viewers.
Positive feedback for climate coverage was much more important than negative feedback. By presenting facts, you can open more eyes.
He said that the management and producers don't underestimate their audience.
Climate Central, a nonprofit organization that works with journalists to publicize facts about climate change, gives free weekly bursts of information to more than 1,000 TV meteorologists. "Forecasters have been at the forefront of making these connections to the public," said Bernadette Woods Placky, Climate Central's chief meteorologist.
Climate Central's pitches and materials were used by several meteorologists. Elizabeth Robaina said she has used the Spanish-language graphics.
Climate Central was praised by Emily Gracey Miller, the meteorologist at ABC's affiliate in Charleston, S.C., for conveying climate news in relevant and not didactic ways.
She said that they would say things like, "Here's how warmer temperatures over the past decade have influenced beer production."
Sinclair Broadcast Group has asked its stations to run politically conservative news items in the past. Ms. Miller said she was able to talk about climate change. A representative of Sinclair did not respond to the request for comment.
Ms. Zee, the first female chief meteorologist at a major broadcast network, said she became interested in the weather when she was a child. She saw a future version of herself as a teenager in the movie Twister, which starred Helen Hunt.
She hosts a recurring feature on climate change with the title "It's Not Too Late" and a 50-minute special around last Earth Day. She is the managing editor of a new ABC News unit devoted to climate change. Carbon renewal technologies are one of the topics she reports on.
Someone asked, "Why did you change into such an advocate?" This is just science. I'm just telling you the science at the end of the day.
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