An example of anthropomorphism in public science discourse:
"So what we've seen in the past couple of days in Southern and Eastern Spain is a weather phenomenon which is known as Dana, or D-A-N-A. And this is not something that is unusual in the area, however of course the unprecedented amount of rainfall that has fallen is very much unusual. And what's actually happening is that cool air from the North is being drawn across the warmer Mediterranean waters. And essentially what happens is this cool air tries to push up and push away the warm air, and this increases the moisture being held in the atmosphere; you get these storm clouds developing, and intense storms, and heavy rainfall. Now, what we have actually seen here is the Jet Stream high up in the atmosphere, it can meander like a river, and what can happen is it creates a cut off area of low pressure. Essentially, this has stalled a regenerating storm system over this part of Spain and particularly the Valencia region. … So, the Mediterranean this year, particularly, we've had records broken, in terms of sea surface temperatures, so the sea, the water, is very warm; we've got this cool air coming in from the North, and it's literally… sucking up the energy and the moisture from the warm sea, and the area that's been effected is fairly mountainous as well, and this is sort of perpetuating these storm clouds and rainfall. And all of this coming together, is so to create this sort of perfect storm."
Dr Jess Neumann (Department of geography and environmental science, University of Reading) was being interviewed on an episode ('Global warming strikes again') of 'Science in Action'.
This is an example of antrhropomorphism as air is not able to 'try' anything; so the phrase 'cool air tries to push up and push away the warm air' cannot explain anything as air is not a sentient agent.
Read examples of anthropomorphism in science
The reference to the Jetstream meandering like a river can be considered a simile.
Read about examples of science similes
Cool air is not literally sucking up anything – from a scientific perspective 'sucking' is not considered a legitimate force (but it is a perfectly acceptable and widely understood informal everyday expression).
Read about sucking as an alternative conception
