Obie, it may certainly be bad wording (and I have a big beef with newspaper writer's imprecise, colloquial, or plain sloppy usage of words that have specific meanings in science ... e.g. theory, sinkhole, etc.), but that does not necessarily indicate bad science. Would you agree with Thomas Reichler (the author of the article in Science to which the newspaper writer was referring) if he stated it as "tropical climate is expanding towards the poles", or "tropical flora and fauna are expanding towards the poles"? He may simply be under the mistaken impression that "the tropics" are defined biologically or climatically, when, in fact as you point out, they are defined geographically or celestially.

As a corollary, not everyone who says "nukular" is a total dummy. Jimmy Carter had a degree in "nukular physics".