Article The clash between science and common sense through a weather lens

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshe...ather-lens

EXCERPTS: Scientific inquiry and advancements benefit society in so many ways. Vaccines, weather prediction models, artificial intelligence, or precision agriculture techniques are examples of how research and development translate to “So What?” Though always lurking, we seem to have an explosion of “keyboard or social media” rhetoric that pits scientific expertise against common sense. Using the lens of my scientific field of atmospheric sciences, I want to explore this conflict and offer some pathways forward.

[...] I am the former president of the American Meteorological Society and serve as director of the atmospheric sciences program at the University of Georgia. I host the Weather Geeks podcast for the Weather Channel and spent twelve years as a research meteorologist at NASA Goddard Space Flight. I mention those things to establish that I have been a part of the weather community for a long time. Here are some of the more popular common—sense takes that I have corrected over the years:

• Heat lightning: It has been passed on to many people that when the sky is illuminating with lightning and no thunder that the heat of the day is somehow causing it. In reality, the lightning is too far away to hear the thunder. Remember, light travels much faster than sound.
  
  
• Climate has always changed: This is one that I commonly hear. Trust me, scientists like me know that. However, we also know that it is not “either/or.” It’s “and.” Grass grows naturally, but it also grows differently when you fertilize the lawn.
  
  
• It’s always hot in the summer so what’s the big deal?: This one is a bit of a challenge because people are familiar with seasons and understand that some months are supposed to be hot in the summer. The risk communication problem is that certain places may be 5 to 10 degrees warmer than they should be and that creates hazards. Yet, the common—sense detector may not recognize that it is hotter than the average expected conditions in late July or August. As I write this, extreme heat is prevalent in the western U.S. from Los Angeles to Seattle. It is creating a health hazard, affecting infrastructure, and boosting the wildfire threat.
  
  
• It’s snowing so how can climate be warming?: This is another very assertion rooted in the common—sense observation that snow is ice and associated with cold conditions. People confuse weather and climate often. Weather is your mood, and climate is your personality. The assumption that a snowy or cold day refutes the broader backdrop of climate indicates a lack of understanding that winter weather will still happen in a climate—warmed world and that there is nothing unusual about snow in Boston in February.
  
  
• Climate change is related to changes in the Sun: This is another tough one because most people think we survive on Earth exclusively because of the direct energy from “Mr. Sun.” If you had kids, you probably got that reference as the song now permeates through your brain, but I digress. Common sense tells people the sun is hot and delivers heat to the Earth. However, the science of the greenhouse effect provides the details of energy being absorbed and re-emitted by greenhouse gasses. That process is the reason we “survive” comfortably each night.
  
  
• Tornadoes don’t hit cities. This myth has been around for a long time. In the grand scheme of things, urban areas are a small percentage of the landscape, so from a statistical standpoint, rural or open landscapes experience more tornadoes. As urban footprints continue to expand and weather radar capabilities advance, it is clear that tornadic activity is happening in cities too.
  
  
• It does not get cold in the desert. Umm, yes it does. However, people perceive deserts to be hot places, and they are. However, they are also places that can be quite cloud-free, which means as heat is radiated away from the ground at night, temperatures can cool substantially.
  
  
• Those cannot be condensation trails coming from airplanes because it is not that cold up there: A friend shared that a guy told him that because planes are flying closer to the Sun, it couldn’t possibly be cold enough for condensation trails to form. Ok, we’ll generously call that common sense, but the atmospheric cools as we go from the surface of the Earth to higher elevations or altitudes. Snow-capped mountains in the summer anyone?
  
  
• There was a 20% chance of rain, so it is not going to rain. That’s always baffling to me. It wasn’t 0%, so my interpretation is that there is certainly a slight chance that it could rain in the area, and if it does, that forecast was not incorrect. Your interpretation was.
  

I could go on with many other examples, but I hope you get the point about how common sense can clash with the science and lead to bad interpretations... (MORE - missing details)