EVELYN CUSACK, deputy head of forecasting, Met Éireann
About 20 BSW (20 years before Science Week), science was largely treated in the media as a geeky, specialist subject of no general interest. As for the weather, it was considered open house for seers, shamans and mystics.
One exception, however, was RTÉ. To its great credit, RTÉ has been using meteorologists to deliver weather forecasts since 1948 on the radio and 1962 on TV. So what’s the connection?
Weather and climate is the science of the atmosphere. It can be understood and predicted only through the rigours of physics, geology, chemistry, biology and mathematics. The media is a vital cog in the public understanding of climate change, which is a complex issue, and I feel Science Week kickstarted the media’s developing love affair with all things scientific. I am proud of how the event has promoted science and I know it has made a real difference.
As it happens, the broadcast I got the most positive reaction from came during Science Week 2013. All that week, many media outlets were quoting some random weather site which was predicting another big winter freeze based on “gobbledegook science”. The general public, farmers and businesses were genuinely worried.
So, in the spirit of Science Week, I was able to explain that due to the physics of the atmosphere we cannot predict beyond about 10 days. I also gave the famous Carl Sagan quote, which I will end with now while wishing the next 20 years of Science Week every continued success: “It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
