Weathermen are members of the climatological society
Not sure what climatological society you're talking about. But I will grant that being a weatherman does not automatically mean that someone has no basis for an expertise in climatology. I just maintain that in and of itself being a TV weatherman does not in any way require or demonstrate any particular expertise in climatology.
In reality the only requirements to be a TV weatherman or woman is to be able to stand in front of a green board and be able to point towards the left when looking at the monitor at something that appears to be on the right. That's pretty much it.
I will however grant that there are certainly a lot of TV weathermen with *meteorological* expertise. Again it’s not something that’s an absolute requirement of being a TV weatherman but it’s something that is reasonably common and I will grant that *most* TV weatherman have a reasonable amount of meteorological expertise.
The thing is *meteorological* expertise is not the same thing as *climatological* expertise.
In any case with regard to Watts as far as anyone can tell he never even graduated from college. From http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts.
“Watts grew up around Cincinnati, Ohio and reportedly attended Purdue University, studying Electrical Engineering and Meteorology. Watts' “About" page mentions neither his Purdue attendance nor whether he graduated. Watts has not been willing to say whether he graduated.”
“Watts holds an American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval (a discontinued credential that does not require a bachelor's or higher degree in atmospheric science or meteorology from an accredited college/university) with a status of retired.”
“Some online lists incorrectly refer to Watts as "AMS Certified", but this is incorrect; the American Meteorological Society reserves its "AMS Certified" designation for its Certified Broadcast Meteorologists and Certified Consulting Meteorologists, and Watts possesses neither certification.”
Again this in no way “proves” that he does not have an expertise in climatology but on the other hand it certainly by no means “proves” that he has any climatology expertise. However when Watts states something that conflicts with someone that has a PhD in a field specifically related to climatology, that has been working in that field for many years and has published literally hundreds of peer reviewed articles then I apologize but I will place my trust in the accredited professional over the unaccredited amateur every single time.
As far a D’Aleo is concerned he actually holds both a BS and an MS in *Meteorology* from The University of Wisconsin. He also is a Certified Consultant *Meteorologist* and was elected a Fellow of the American *Meteorological* Society. While I do want to point out (again) that *Meteorological* is not the same as *Climatology*, I will grant that D’Aleo certainly has more documented expertise than Watts. Again not necessarily up to the level of a PhD climatologist but some level of expertise nonetheless. The above is from http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1276.
But I am not a total credential snob. I will grant that just because someone does not have credentials that necessarily means they know nothing, but again I maintain that being a TV weatherman does not automatically qualify *anyone* as an expert on climatology.
Of more importance to me is being published in peer reviewed reputable journals. And contrary to the blogosphere there has in no way been any proof that a handful of climate scientists hold any kind of stranglehold on the peer reviewed publishing process. While I do have a PhD it’s in Electrical Engineering not climatology, and I make no pretense at any expertise in the subject of climatology. Someone with sufficient knowledge could easily “snow” me, however the peer review process requires that someone convince their “peers” which by definition are people that will not be facetiously misled. To me the process is the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.” It's the same process used in all other scientific fields and while people have recently denigrated this process based on a sentance or two out of thousands of emails *nothing* has been even close to sufficiently proven to cause me the least bit of doubt in this process.
I assume this focus on the expertise of TV weatherman is based on my reply #10 where I mentioned in passing that Watts’ and D’Aleo’s only claim to expertise is being a TV weatherman, but that hardly was my primary argument. My primary argument in rebuttal to the report that ID referenced (i.e. Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception?) was the article The IPCC vs. Joseph D'Aleo and Anthony Watts.
Of course no one bothered to address the arguments presented in this article preferring instead to claim that every TV weatherman is a qualified climatologist and their every utterance is to be taken as proven fact.
So if someone wishes to address the real content of the rebuttal then fine, otherwise all you’re really doing is pissing in the wind.
And if you’re *really* interested here’s another pair of rebuttals to the Watt’s D’Aleo article. Dropouts from the denigrated for no apparent reason Tamino/Grant Foster and ‘Extraordinary Claims’ in KUSI Broadcast On NOAA, NASA … but ‘Extraordinary Evidence’? by Zeke Hausfather who I’m sure will be found unacceptable for some reason or other.
I love the fact that you use Wiki as your go to site while I foolishly read all the actual reports.
I will respond to your 2nd reply later but this reply is overly long as it is, however one point about the Wiki in particular and "skeptic" arguments in general.
I'm perfectly familiar with the claims made against William Connolley and his "editing" of AGW related articles. I've debunked this claim a number of times myself and that's the thing about "skeptic" claims, they just get repeated and repeated without any kind of proof, no matter how many times and by how many people these claims have been shown to be baseless. The thing is that to the "skeptics" it really doesn't matter. There's no need to show any credible evidence, it's sufficient to merely make a claim because the goal is to merely confuse and obsfucate.
For example what happened to the argument that the sun was increasing by 10% every 100 or 1000 years in some vague and unspecified way? What was the point of introducing that and then just as quickly dropping it as if you had never said such a thing.
Anyway, like I said I'll respond to your other points sometime later as this reply is way too long already.