Quote:
Originally Posted by Manseed  me·te·or·ol·o·gy
–noun
1. the science dealing with the atmosphere and its phenomena, including weather and climate.
2. the atmospheric conditions and weather of an area. |
Meteorologists (aka, weathermen) "study" weather patterns in a fixed area (i.e., Seattle, or Philadelphia, or Scranton) for the purposes of predicting upcoming weather for TV viewers. They know jack-all about the global climate, climatology, the actual science behind their fields, etc.
The only skills required to be a meteorologist are being nonthreateningly good-looking and/or congenial, being able to read off of a teleprompter, and being able to gesture at a green screen while describing the chances of rain on the upcoming Memorial Day weekend in Terra Haute. The requirements for obtaining a meteorology degree are ridiculously lax. Back when my father worked for a local TV station, he'd talk about how weathermen and weather girls were basically just pretty faces that the producers sent off to meteorology school for a year or two to get their easy degrees and then come back. They were basically the sort of people deemed too dumb for the anchor's desk and too pretty to do traffic. I'm sure the IQ requirements of the job have dropped even further in recent years, now that the general trend in weather reporting seems to be shifting away from "congenial, slightly older weatherman" to "dumb blonde with a nice rack and a silly laugh."
Comparing legitimate climatologists to meteorologists is a bit like comparing marine biologists to dolphin trainers at SeaWorld. One of them knows almost everything there is to know about dolphins; the other knows that if you hold a fish in the air, you can make a dolphin jump.
