![]() ![]() “The Bureau transparently reports on and provides access to its very large climate data records,” she said.Īnd in the UK, meteorologists reported unprecedented levels of online harassment during last year’s record-breaking heat wave, which led to the first-ever “red warning” for heat. A spokeswoman for BOM called these claims inaccurate. In Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology has been bombarded with criticism of its reporting of temperature records, with claims they have been inflated to make climate change seem worse. It “seems to be on the rise, both in terms of the number of attacks directed against scientific publications but also the increasingly aggressive tone of the insults.” Météo France, the French national meteorological service, said the agency’s communications are “the object of more and more repeated attacks,” a Météo France spokesman told CNN.Ĭlimate misinformation on social media is particularly widespread, he said. In France, meteorologists have been accused of exaggerating the country’s drought and heat. ![]() This phenomenon may be particularly pronounced in Spain, but it spreads much wider. “I have never seen either that amount of responses nor that level of aggression.” It took days for her to be able to go onto Twitter again without feeling anxious or stressed.ĭisappearing lakes, dead crops and trucked-in water: Drought-stricken Spain is running dry While there were plenty of supportive messages, too, it was scary, Moreno said. “They dry us up, and you are the spokesperson for those who do it,” said another. ![]() Many accused her of covering up weather manipulation. “I received HUNDREDS of responses to an (apparently) inoffensive tweet,” she told CNN in an email. “It was one of the hardest experiences in social media in my life,” said Moreno, who appears on the Spanish TV channel RTVE. She was completely unprepared for the response. In April, meteorologist Isabel Moreno wrote a tweet saying “rain skips Spain,” with an image of a band of rain stretching across Europe but missing Spain almost entirely. It’s a theory roundly rejected by scientists.Īirplanes do release vapor trails called contrails, short for condensation trails, which form when water vapor condenses into ice crystals around the small particles emitted by jet engines.īut scientists have been clear: There is no evidence “chemtrails” exist. They falsely claim the trails contain a cocktail of chemicals to artificially manipulate the weather – keeping rain away and causing climate change. Under many of the agency’s Twitter posts, especially those that refer to more extreme weather, users have posted images of blue skies, crisscrossed with wispy, white trails. In Spain’s case, much of the trolling revolves around the rehashing of an old conspiracy theory: so-called “chemtrails.” Usually submerged ruins of the former village of Aceredo, appearing from the Lindoso hydroelectric plant reservoir due to the low water level, near Lobios, northwestern Spain, on February 15, 2022. National weather services, meteorologists and climate communicators in countries from the US to Australia say they’re experiencing an increase in threats and abuse, often around accusations they are overstating, lying about or even controlling the weather. The harassment of meteorologists by conspiracy theorists and climate deniers is not a phenomenon confined to Spain. Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for the ecological transition, posted on Twitter in support of the agency: “Lying, giving wings to conspiracy and fear, insulting … It is time to say enough.” The abuse got so bad that in April, AEMET posted a video on Twitter calling for an end to the harassment, and asking for respect. A severe drought has shrunk water levels to alarming lows, exacerbated by record-breaking April temperatures. They come via social media, its website, letters, phone calls – even in the form of graffiti sprayed across one of its buildings.Ībuse and harassment “have always happened” against the agency’s scientists, Estrella Gutiérrez-Marco, spokesperson for AEMET, told CNN.īut there has been a rapid rise recently, coinciding with extreme weather in Spain. These are just a handful of the threats and abuse sent to meteorologists at AEMET, Spain’s national weather agency, in recent months. “Murderers.” “Criminals.” “We are watching you.” ![]()
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