Still trying that debunked fossil fuel funded denier bs.
Here's SNOPES debunking it: https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/07/29/weather-maps-climate-change/In July 2022, as much of the world experienced intense heat waves, many social media users attempted to downplay the extreme weather trend by accusing meteorologists of exaggerating the hot temperatures with scary-looking weather maps. A series of before-and-after images supposedly comparing years-old TV weather maps with current weather maps were shared online along with the claim that the maps, not the temperatures, were getting scarier over time:
Television weather presenters are not fear-mongering with exaggerated weather maps. The above-displayed comparisons are misleading, as they cherry-pick moments from years-old broadcasts and compare entirely different types of maps. More importantly, meteorologists design these weather maps to quickly and effectively communicate information to the public, not to scare or deceive people.
Dave Herring, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told us that weather communicators have been "increasingly using colors" to make maps more intuitive to non-weather specialists. These changes, Herring said, aren't to "trick anyone or make [the weather] seem scarier; rather, the point is to make it more relatable to the variable being shown, so that it's more intuitive to the lay public and easier to understand."
Herring said in an email:
Communicators in general — including broadcast meteorologists — have been increasingly using colors that are representative of the variable(s) they're showing in order to make their maps more intuitive to non-specialists. For example, using 'cool' tones (blue, purple and white) to show areas where there are very cold temperatures; and using "warm" tones (yellow, orange, red, dark red) to show where there are hotter temperatures. We see similar strategies in other maps too, such as very heavy rains and sea level change / flood maps — using a graduating scale of blue hues to show increasing amounts of water.
We've Seen These Types of Accusations Before
This isn't the first time that weather presenters have been falsely accused of fear-mongering with "exaggerated" weather maps. Take the pair of images on the far right of the above-displayed collage of disingenuous map comparisons, for example. This image pair circulated in 2019 along with the same sort of accusations that surfaced in July 2022 -- that the maps are intentionally being made scarier in order to push the idea that there is a climate crisis. The comparison is of two different weather maps that were broadcast at different times by the German news program "Tagesschau."
The network addressed the accusations in 2019, explaining that the image compared two different types of weather maps. The top was a temperature forecast that used a range of colors to give viewers an estimation of how hot it would be in a given area. Meanwhile, the bottom map came from a multi-day weather outlook that gave viewers more information than simply the high temperatures for the day; it also displayed data about cloudiness, precipitation, and sunshine. Because of that, this information was displayed on a neutral-colored map.
Tagesschau wrote at the time (translated from German via Google):
The top map [...] is a temperature forecast. The coloring allows you to guess how high the temperatures will be, even where there is no number. The scale can range from dark red for hot temperatures to cold blue. [...]The lower map in the graphic distributed on Facebook, on the other hand, is the outlook for the next three days, which not only shows the temperatures, but also information about cloudiness, precipitation or sunshine. This information is stored with a neutral map.
The Evolution of Data Visualization and Weather Maps
The above-displayed images do not involve apples-to-apples comparisons. The older maps come from instances in which weather presenters were using neutral maps and talking generally about weather conditions (wind, rain, sun, clouds, temperature, and so on), while the images of recent maps come from moments in which weather presenters were specifically describing heat. A more honest comparison of how weather maps were used during heat waves in previous years would feature two images of maps that were used to illustrate heat waves. While it should be noted that there isn't a set global standard for weather map design, we found several examples of years-old weather maps that used "scary" red colors to illustrate excessive heat. For example, here's how ABC illustrated a heatwave in 2012:
Read the whole thing in the link above... (you won't, you'll just keep posting debunked bs from fossil fuel funded websites)
