Word: maying
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Complaining about inaccurate forecasts may seem harmless and not worth writing about. However, such behavior can have real consequences, since pressure from the public sometimes takes scientists out of the vacuum in which they should be working. Knowing that they will be harshly criticized if a storm is worse than expected, for example, meteorologists often hedge their bets and forecast the direst possible scenario—absolving themselves of blame at the cost of knowingly withholding their real best guesses...
...direst possible scenario also tends to be the most sensationalistic one—and, again, sometimes this is a purposeful manipulation of the data. The commercialization of weather-forecasting agencies may be leading some meteorologists to intentionally gussy up their forecasts to be more exciting—therefore driving more traffic to their website. These trends are deplorable, and we blame both the weather companies and the overeager public for taking the neutrality out of yet another science...
Precautions such as these remind us why meteorologists are valuable. It may be easy to knock them, but they deserve our gratitude as well. When tornadoes are forming in Kansas or a blizzard is dropping down across Canada, they rarely miss it, and their expertise often spares lives. Hopefully, as yesterday’s widely predicted storm blankets the memories of last week, we can spare the meteorologists...
...because we love Sigur Rós (though who doesn’t like that DVD of the Icelandic pastoral paradise?), nor is it because we adore Iceland’s lovely arctic fox. Our newfound love of Iceland is due to the protection that this volcanic island country may soon be offering people like us—you know, journalists...
That’s right, this lovely island in the North Atlantic may become the investigative journalism hub of the world...