Climate change: Did Hurricane Dorian coverage miss the boat?

climate change
"Warmer ocean water and air means this rapid intensification is happening more frequently.”

Why aren’t we talking about climate change? A new study makes a startling discovery about Hurricane Dorian coverage.

Media Matters for America is a 501(c)(3) non-profit geared at the research and investigation of conservative media bias. According to their study, “Scientists agree there is strong evidence that climate change has increased the intensity, frequency, and possibly the duration of extreme weather events like Dorian.”

However, you wouldn’t know that by watching the news. 

The study revealed that of the three major news networks, ABC, NBC and CBS, climate change was linked to Dorian only one time out of 216 segments across the stations on the topic of the storm. CBS is credited with airing a single segment on Dorian and climate change.

After Dorian ravaged the Bahamas, U.K. news publication, The Guardian, reported what we already know—warm water increases the intensity of storm winds. 

That said, something we may not know is a new study shows the Atlantic Basin is having more, high-intensity storms, year over year.

The revelation may come as no surprise to Floridians who weathered Category 5 hurricanes like Michael, Irma and Dorian over the course of a couple of years. But the scientific link should have those living in coastal areas questioning the root of the issue.

According to the Media Matters study, “Dorian rapidly intensified to become a Category 5. In fact, Dorian is one of the strongest storms to make landfall ever recorded in the Atlantic, and it’s the strongest storm ever to hit the Bahamas. And warmer ocean water and air means this rapid intensification is happening more frequently.”

The link between extreme weather and climate change is worth discussing, at least that’s what Media Matters thinks. 

If trends continue as projected, Floridians can expect to weather more intense storms in years to come. But if Hurricane Dorian coverage is any indicator, we may not be asking the right question—why?

Melissa S. Razdrih

Melissa S. Razdrih is a Tampa correspondent for Florida Politics. Razdrih graduated with a Bachelor's degree from the University of Tampa in 2006 and went on to earn a Master's degree before switching gears to write professionally. Since then, Razdrih has been published in national blogs, like PopSugar, and local publications, like Tampa Bay Business and Wealth, on everything from self-care to cryptocurrency, but politics is her passion. Contact her at [email protected].


4 comments

  • jon

    September 9, 2019 at 10:33 am

    Another fine article for the bullshit dump!

  • Ray Blacklidge

    September 9, 2019 at 11:12 am

    Perhaps they realized that August, the month we have the most hurricanes produced, was absent hurricanes except at the end Dorian, even though September is when it officially arrived. Don’t you remember when all those networks ran stories on how climate change was going to make 2019 August a monster hurricane producer? The shut down of stories was most likely in part their embarrassment of being wrong. Yes, we have climate change, the Earth has always moved back and forth, remember the Ice Age? Basically this article was a waste of space.

    • Sandy Oestreich

      September 9, 2019 at 6:00 pm

      2 more Climate Change Deniers from the deliberately uninformed GOP. More proof that our educational system fails kids. Maybe they are correct, but we hope they have their water wings handy.

      • gary

        September 10, 2019 at 7:36 am

        You are being manipulated by the Globalist. They have been trying this nonsense since I was a kid in the 70’s! Do your own research without using GOOGLE, you owe it to yourself and your family!

Comments are closed.


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