Making Climate Forecasts Matter (1999) / Chapter Skim
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4 Making Climate Forecast Information More Useful
4 Making Climate Forecast Information More Useful
Pages 63-94
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From page 63... ...
Climate forecasting is intended to help them cope better, but not all forecast information will necessarily be useful toward this goal. Forecast information can have value only if people can change their actions in beneficial ways based on the content of the information.
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From page 64... ...
Insurance also decreases the incentive for farmers to change their practices on the basis of a climate forecast, since they are covered against disasters. In water management, distinct kinds of forecast information are use
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From page 65... ...
For example, it may be supposed that the prior appropriation system in the western United States is rigid, leaving water users with little discretion to make adjustments that take forecast information into account. However, by providing a clear link between water availability and use rights, the senior priority rule allows water users and managers to calculate the probability of obtaining water under any particular right given the predicted climatic conditions and to make appropriate investments or water purchases to achieve desired levels of reliability (Hutchins, 1971; Trelease, 1977~.
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From page 66... ...
Hydro-dependent utilities might benefit from seasonal forecasts of precipitation and runoff, and utilities with seasonal demand profiles might benefit from seasonal forecasts of heating or cooling degree-days; their specific information needs and lead times are unknown. These examples illustrate that the usefulness of climate forecast information depends on the match between various attributes of the information and the needs and capabilities of individuals and organizations who may be affected and on the ability of these users to get the information processed to fit their needs.
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From page 67... ...
Some actors may gain advantage in contractual negotiations if they receive and correctly interpret forecast information earlier than others. Such distributional consequences are shaped by actors' situations and by the institutions that shape them (e.g., water law, insurance regulations)
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From page 68... ...
Researchers in climate modeling have used the onset of E1 Nino to forecast drought in the region up to 6 months in advance and, more recently, have learned that droughts in northeastern Brazil are even more strongly correlated with Atlantic sea surface temperature. Therefore, accurate prediction of ENSO and Atlantic sea surface temperature has the potential to improve well-being in the region by providing policy makers with information on anticipated climate variations.
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From page 69... ...
For example, agricultural subsidies were much more easily available in 1992 than in 1987 and would have boosted agricultural production even in the absence of a seasonal climate forecast. Also, the link between ENSO and regional climate is rather weak, with ENSO accounting for only about 10 percent of the rainfall variation over northeast Brazil (Hastenrath and Helter, 1977~.
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From page 70... ...
Another important insight is that it is important to include economic and political factors such as subsidies in assessing the effects of a prediction for agriculture, in order not to overestimate forecast value and to consider local history in making assumptions about how a forecast will be received. The Credibility of Famine Early Warning Systems Seasonal climate forecast information is also used in famine early warning systems.
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From page 71... ...
Because of the limited amount of direct knowledge about responses to climate forecasts, a considerable portion of the knowledge relevant to providing people with improved climate forecast information is indirect. Some of this is in the form of general knowledge of how people think about weather and climate; some consists of knowledge about how human beings as individuals and in organizations acquire and process new information generally; some comes from knowledge about how people use information in possibly analogous situations.
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From page 72... ...
On the positive side, traditional forecasting indicates the receptivity of certain social groups to the concept of climate forecasting and presumably also their appreciation of the fact that seasonal forecasts are imperfect. In addition, the traditional forecasts probably identify the climatic parameters that are most relevant to their users' subsistence decisions.
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From page 73... ...
Understanding the mental models people might use to assimilate climate forecast information may therefore help with the task of making this information intelligible to the potential users. A historical example concerning interannual climate variations illus trates how human beings assimilate climatic information into preexisting mental models and the shortcomings of this cognitive strategy (from Kupperman, 1982~.
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From page 74... ...
. Climate forecasts are based on covariations among variables (in a simple example, tropical sea surface temperature and precipitation in southern California)
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From page 75... ...
These findings suggest that, if people learn a mental model that includes relevant predictor and outcome variables and facilitates correct expectations about relationships, they will find it easier to understand the information in climate forecasts, will be more likely to trust and use the forecasts, and will update their mental models more appropriately on the basis of observations and climatic information. Two key attributes of climate forecast information that are likely to affect how individuals interpret it are that forecasts are probabilistic and uncertain.
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From page 76... ...
Understanding how people make such choices is relevant to designing methods of conveying the information in climate forecasts, which will have uncertainty attached. The fact that some forecasts will inevitably be wrong raises questions about how people will interpret forecast information after a forecast failure.
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From page 77... ...
Organizational Responses to New Information Climate forecasts present organizations with the challenge of processing and acting on new information. However, many organizations that could benefit from climate forecast information have not established routines or responsibilities for processing this kind of information.
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From page 78... ...
Research on responses to new information by organizations responsible for disaster warning are of particular relevance for climate forecasts because these organizations sometimes provide warnings of climatic events. The performance of organizations responsible for detecting disasters and managing disaster-related information depends on how well they cope with a variety of challenges.
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From page 79... ...
Organizations that respond well to information about disasters tend to have had considerable time and experience addressing these challenges. To the extent that delivering climate forecast information requires the involvement of new organizations or requires existing organizations to behave differently, a period of learning is likely to be required before effective response can be counted on.
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From page 80... ...
The "green revolution" in agriculture, which developed knowledge and technology as well as spreading information, attempted to induce farmers to adopt new seeds and cultural practices in order to dramatically increase grain production. It shares some of the distinctive features of climate forecasting and is particularly interesting because it induced farmers to do things they may also do in response to climate forecasts.
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From page 81... ...
2. In designing informational efforts, consider the entire information delivery system, not just the message and the audience.
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From page 82... ...
It is often important to plan for the possibility that different information sources will distribute conflicting information. Research on disaster warnings has contributed to a good understanding of the information systems involved in short-term warnings of major negative weather events, such as hurricanes and floods, as well as of aspects of the information systems that can be employed for longer-term warning of such events.
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From page 83... ...
Knowledge about these information delivery systems is obviously relevant for climate forecasting when it provides longterm warnings of increased probability of disaster. However, it is quite likely that the information delivery systems for non-disaster-related information from climate forecasts will be different in important ways.
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From page 84... ...
Participatory approaches to delivering climate information might include structured dialogues between climate scientists and forecast users to identify the climate parameters of particular importance to users and the organizations that users might rely on for climate forecast information: such dialogues could establish communication channels among scientists, information-transmitting organizations, and users that might direct forecasting research toward users' needs and clear up questions likely to arise, such as about forecast accuracy and uncertainty. If these approaches work as well as they sometimes have in other fields, they would tend to make forecast information more decision relevant, to improve mutual understanding between scientists and forecast users, and to encourage appropriate interpretation and use of forecast information.
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From page 85... ...
In the research literature on disaster warning, it is well established that information is of little use without well-functioning information delivery systems (Mileti et al., 1985) , and considerable research has been devoted to identifying the characteristics of such systems (Mileti and Sorenson, 1987, 1990~.
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From page 86... ...
The implications for climate forecasts are as yet unknown, but in terms of the accuracy of forecasts, their usual lead times, and their importance to their audiences, climate forecasts would appear to be more like longer-term disaster warnings or the information offered by health and proenvironmental behavior programs than like short-term disaster warn~ngs.
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From page 87... ...
Similarly, in the field of proenvironmental behavior, there has been increasing recognition that community-based programs that employ a variety of behavioral change strategies, including participatory approaches, are among the most promising strategies available (Gardner and Stern, 1996~. In the field of disaster warning, however, a more authoritarian model of persuasive communication, relying on scientists to gather information and government agencies and private-sector organizations to disseminate it, has proven useful.
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From page 88... ...
Consequently, we believe much can be gained by using participatory approaches that rely heavily on the involvement of communities of potential forecast users both for developing climate forecast information and for designing information delivery systems. Such approaches are likely to provide climate scientists with useful and timely information about the attributes of forecasts that will make them useful for the intended recipients, to build understanding among the recipients of what forecasts can and cannot do, and to develop an appropriate level of trust in forecast information.
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From page 89... ...
Although the general findings need further validation as applied to climate forecast information, they suggest ways to go about organizing and distributing such information so it can be used effectively within social coping systems. They also suggest directions for research on how to make climate forecasts more valuable.
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From page 90... ...
There is little systematic knowledge at present for matching activities, sectors, and actors with their informational needs. However, the following attributes of climate forecast information are among those it is important to match.
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From page 91... ...
Before 1997, there was very little research specifically on the use of climate forecast information. However, the few rich case studies that exist suggest the value of carefully examined experience.
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From page 92... ...
These strategies typically involve recipients, their representatives, or their proxies in identifying the needed climatic information and designing the information delivery system. Participatory strategies are important at this stage because the accuracy and importance of climate forecast information is not yet obvious to the potential users and because climate scientists do not yet understand which attributes of forecast information would make it most useful to recipients.
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From page 93... ...
Little is known about the specifics for climate forecast information and particular types of recipients.
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From page 94... ...
Closing the gap between the potential value of climate forecast information and its actual value will depend on developing focused knowledge about which forecast information is potentially useful for which recipients, about how these recipients process the information, and about the characteristics of effective information delivery systems and messages for meeting the needs of particular types of recipients. It may also depend on improved understanding of how to design information systems that effectively reach marginalized and vulnerable groups.
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