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5 Climate Studies That Don't Live Up to Their Hype
A leading climate scientist argues that overbroad claims by some researchers—coupled with overblown reporting in the media—can undermine the public's understanding of climate issues. Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate modeler, author and PM editorial advisor, concurs with the consensus view that the planet's temperature is rising due largely to human activity. But, he says, many news stories prematurely attribute local or regional phenomena to climate change. This can lead to the dissemination of vague, out-of-context or flat-wrong information to the public.

"People think that if there's a trend, it has to be connected to this bigger trend," he says. "You often get this kind of jumping the gun." Sometimes researchers are citing a potential connection to global warming to get noticed, he says, and sometimes journalists are focusing on that connection to make the story more compelling. "There's a bit of a backlash amid people who have a brain," says Schmidt. "It's akin to [the media's reporting on] medical studies. It adds to people's confusion."

Here are 5 studies Schmidt points to that made unfulfilled promises, used loose, questionable climate connections to sensationalize a story or predicted events that never came to be. ...