|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
The following HTML text is provided to enhance online readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML. Please use the page image as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy. Page 124 6
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
Page 124 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 124
Page 124
6
Scientific Priorities
Climate variability on seasonal-to-interannual time scales has a
discernible effect on ecological systems and human welfare in
different parts of the world. Existing and new methods of
prediction offer the possibility of real, although imperfect, skill
in predicting aspects of the climate several months to a year or
more in advance in a number of geographical regions. As Chapter 3
shows, humanity has developed a variety of techniques for coping
with climatic variations. The techniques actually employed vary
across regions and types of activity and with the economic, social,
cultural, institutional, and technological characteristics of
sectors, regions, and users, and their availability and usefulness
changes over time. These coping techniques shape the human
consequences of climatic variations and the potential usefulness of
climate forecast information.
The introduction of skillful predictive information into a
social system adapted to unpredictable climate variability
introduces new problems and opportunities. Chapter 4 shows that the
way actors respond to new predictive information depends on their
perceptions of its value, importance, and accuracy; their prior
expectations about climate; the institutional structures and
constraints in which they operate; and other factors. Their
perceptions can be influenced by education and by the mode and
manner in which forecast information is conveyed to them. New
information does not benefit all recipients equally, and some may
even be worse off as a result of improved forecasts, depending on
their situations and the specifics of the forecast and its
dissemination, not all of
OCR for page 125
Page 125
which are understood. As Chapters 4 and 5 show, there are
techniques by which the utility of forecasts can be improved and
methods by which the utility of the forecasts and their effects on
recipients can be evaluated.
Useful applications of climate information to societal problems
are beginning to be made, mostly in a haphazard and disorganized
manner. Nevertheless, the practical potential of
seasonal-to-interannual climate forecasts to produce socially
beneficial information is beginning to become apparent. To realize
fully this potential, it is necessary to conduct systematic
investigations in pursuit of two goals:
1.
understanding the potential and actual consequences of improved
seasonal-to-interannual forecasts, and
2.
making these forecasts more useful.
This chapter summarizes the panel's findings and outlines a
series of scientific questions, the investigation of which will
help society approach these goals.
Findings
Climate Forecasting and Its Uses
•
Uncertainty is embedded in climate forecasts because of the
chaotic processes inherent in the atmospheric system.
•
The skill of climate predictions varies by geographic region, by
climate parameter, and by time scale.
•
Research addressed to questions framed by climate science is not
necessarily useful to all. A climate forecast is useful to a
particular recipient only if it is sufficiently skillful, timely,
and relevant to actions the recipient can take to make it possible
to undertake behavioral changes that improve outcomes.
•
Progress in measuring and modeling ocean-atmosphere interactions
is likely to improve predictive skill in regions and for climatic
parameters for which very limited skill now exists, thus increasing
the potential for forecasts to be useful in new regions and for new
purposes.
•
The utility of forecasts can be increased by systematic efforts
to bring scientific output and users' needs closer together. These
efforts may include both analytic efforts to identify the climatic
parameters to which particular sectors or groups are highly
sensitive or vulnerable and social processes that foster continual
interaction between the producers and the consumers of
forecasts.
OCR for page 126
Page 126
Coping with Seasonal-to-Interannual
Climate Variation
The effects of climatic events and climate forecasts on human
populations are shaped by the coping strategies that people have
developed over long periods of time for living in variable
climates. To make forecasts optimally useful, it is necessary to
understand these coping systems. Specifically:
•
People have developed a wide variety of strategies for coping
with climate variability. The major ex ante strategies used around
the world and across types of weather-sensitive activities include
technological interventions, hedging, risk sharing (e.g.,
insurance), emergency preparedness, and forecasting and forecast
delivery. Many ex ante strategies are undertaken mainly to reduce
the risk of extreme negative events and the necessity of using
costly ex post strategies such as disaster relief.
•
These coping strategies are interdependent: the adoption of one
may reduce the need to engage in another.
•
The consequences of climatic events for actors in
weather-sensitive sectors and the usefulness to them of particular
types of forecast information depend on the coping strategies they
use, which are often culturally, regionally, and sectorally
specific. Therefore, the consequences of climate variability,
climate sensitivity, vulnerability, and the usefulness of forecasts
cannot be adequately assessed in the absence of a basic
understanding of the coping mechanisms being used.
•
Coping strategies are not equally available to all affected
actors, and the availability of robust coping strategies is likely
to be a function of wealth. The strategies available to affected
people depend on their access to formal institutions (e.g.,
insurance markets), past public investments (e.g., flood-control
dams), local informal institutions (e.g., obligations to support
the poor), and attributes of the actors (e.g., income, education).
An important research hypothesis is that the more robust coping
strategies are those developed in wealthy countries and available
to wealthy actors. The coping strategies available to any
particular set of actors, and the relative costs of using them, can
only be known by observation.
•
Not every actor uses every available coping strategy.
•
Sensitivities and vulnerabilities to climatic variation change
over time because of social, political, economic, and technological
changes in or affecting coping systems and changes in individuals'
abilities to use these systems. The adequacy of estimates of the
consequences of future climatic events, therefore, depends on
realistic assessments of these changes in social systems.
•
Successful coping with climatic variations sometimes depends on
nonclimatic information, such as about the status of resources that
may be
OCR for page 127
Page 127
affected by climatic events, the prices of inputs, and the
condition of institutions that may help in coping.
The Potential of Climate
Forecasts
Although climate forecast information has great potential social
value, its actual value may fall short of the potential for many
reasons. In addition, information that is valuable for some
purposes or for some recipients may not be for others. Much depends
on how well forecast information is matched to users' needs,
structured in accord with their modes of understanding, and
delivered through systems that are effective for particular types
of recipients. Responses to past forecasts also affect the use of
new ones. Specifically:
•
Climate forecasts are useful only to the extent that they
provide information that people can use to improve their outcomes
beyond what they would otherwise have been. Different kinds of
forecast information are useful for different climate-sensitive
activities, regions, and coping systems, and messages about
forecasts are most likely to be effective if they address
recipients' specific informational needs. Among the attributes of
climate forecasts that are often important to recipients are:
—
Timing, lead time, and updating,
—
Climate parameters,
—
Spatial and temporal resolution of the forecast, and
—
Accuracy of the forecast.
•
Responses to past climate forecasts are an essential source of
information for understanding responses to future ones. The
1997-1998 El Niño provides a valuable opportunity for
building knowledge for improving the value of future climate
forecasts. Responses to past 5- to 10-day weather outlooks may also
provide valuable insights.
•
Individual and organizational responses to climate forecasts are
likely to conform to known generalities about responses to other
kinds of new information. For instance, individual responses are
likely to be strongly affected by the respondents' preexisting
mental models, and organizational responses are strongly affected
by their preexisting routines and the roles and responsibilities
assigned within them. General principles of information processing
suggest several specific hypotheses about the acceptance and use of
climate forecast information that are worth careful investigation
and are suggestive for practice. An important one, also borne out
by past experience with climate forecasts, is that overconfident
predictions and forecasts not confirmed by actual events have a
strong negative influence on the future use of forecast
information.
OCR for page 128
Page 128
•
The effectiveness of new information depends strongly on the
systems that distribute the information, the channels of
distribution, recipients' judgments about the information sources,
and the ways in which the informational messages are presented.
Knowledge from analogous situations suggests some working
hypotheses about how to improve delivery of this kind of
information, such as:
—
At the present stage of development of climate forecasting,
participatory strategies are likely to be most useful for designing
effective information systems.
—
When information delivery requires new orgnaizations or
organizational roles, a period of learning is likely to be
necessary for effective information delivery.
—
The usefulness of forecast information for a particular
recipient will depend on how it is presented.
—
General principles of persuasive communication can be applied to
climate forecast information within the bounds of audience
acceptance of deliberate influence.
—
Useful information is likely to flow first to those with the
most education and money.
•
Climate forecasts have different effects on different regions,
sectors, and actors. The effects on any specific actor depend on
available coping mechanisms and access to information in usable
form.
Measuring the Consequences of Climate
Variability and Forecasts
Scientific capability to measure and model the effects of
seasonal-to-interannual climatic variability is well developed in
some sectors (e.g., agriculture, water resources) and only
beginning to be developed in others (e.g., human health,
environmental amenities). Scientific capability to judge the value
of climate forecasts is in its infancy.
•
A variety of quantitative and qualitative methods exists for
estimating the human consequences of climatic variations and for
estimating the value of forecasts. Each of them involves
simplifying assumptions that require validation or relies on data
of uncertain generality.
•
Models currently employed for analyzing the impacts of climatic
variability are limited by important conceptual deficiencies and
methodological limitations. Improvement in modeling capability over
time requires research to address these major limitations in basic
understanding. Limitations arise from an oversimplified concept of
the relation between climatic events and human consequences; an
imprecision in the definitions of key concepts such as
vulnerability, adaptation, and sensitivity to
OCR for page 129
Page 129
climate variability; inadequate representation of coping
strategies; and inadequate attention to the distinction between the
potential and the actual value of climate forecasts, effects of
climatic events that are not easily measured, effects of skillful
forecasts on institutions, qualitative differences among climatic
effects, and special impacts of catastrophically large negative
events on particularly vulnerable activities or groups.
•
Current analytical methods are limited by a lack of reliable
strategies for defining baseline descriptions of society.
•
The ability to detect and model certain consequences of climate
variability depends on the scale of resolution of the research in
space and time.
•
Analyses of the value of climate forecasts have paid
insufficient attention to the distribution of benefits and
costs.
•
Although governments and other organizations around the world
collect data that are relevant to measuring the effects of climate
variability and the value of climate forecasts, meta-data are
nonexistent to describe the availability, quality, resolution, and
other essential traits of these data for these purposes.
General
•
The consequences of past climate fluctuations are an essential
source of information for understanding the consequences of future
ones.
•
A variety of well-developed research methods exist for
conducting research on the scientific questions raised by these
findings. They are specified in the following discussion.
Scientific Questions
We propose a program of research addressed to the ultimate goals
of understanding and increasing the value of
seasonal-to-interannual climate forecasts. Because this field of
research is so new, it makes little sense to be highly
prescriptive. Rather, we have identified a series of scientific
questions that can provide programmatic guidance. The questions
fall into three broad categories: research on the potential
benefits of climate forecast information, on improved dissemination
of forecast information, and on estimating the consequences of
climatic variations and of climate forecasts. Research that clearly
addresses these questions will yield progress toward the ultimate
goals. We also emphasize the potential value of studying past
climate fluctuations and forecasts, such as those of the 1997-1998
period, as an important approach to addressing all three categories
of questions. Although in our view a rather open-ended research
program makes the most sense at present, it will be reasonable
OCR for page 130
Page 130
for program managers to reassess progress from time to time and
to reconsider whether a more prescriptive science plan is advisable
at some later date.
Potential Benefits of Climate Forecast
Information
1. Which regions, sectors, and actors
would benefit from improved forecast information, and which
forecast information would potentially be of the greatest benefit
to them?
Research on this question would aim to set an agenda for climate
science from the point of view of the consumers of forecast
information. Climate forecasts can be improved in multiple ways
(e.g., in different regions, for different parameters, over
different lead times), but these different kinds of improvements
are probably not equal in terms of the social benefits they could
bring. Research on this question would provide a voice of consumer
demand to the climate science community.
This research should proceed from the recognition that the
usefulness of forecast information is typically specific to
culture, region, sector, institutional context, and other factors
that influence the strategies actors use for coping with climatic
variations. Thus, the benefit a forecast can bring depends not only
on its accuracy but also on the nature of the human activities that
occur in the region covered by the forecast and on the ability of
particular actors in that region to change their behavior
beneficially on the basis of information in it. For example, a
storm will have dramatically different effects depending on whether
or not it hits a populated area and, if it does, on how the
population is organized to cope with events: how it has constructed
its buildings, how it is insured against losses, how effective its
warning systems are, how exposed its essential services such as
electric power and food supply are to storm damage, and various
other social factors that vary across locations and change over
time. Thus, the value of a forecast concerning the probability of
serious storms will depend on these variables as well as on the
skill and accuracy of the forecast.
Because the value of a forecast is specific in these ways, it
cannot be reliably determined without considering the affected
activities in the region it covers and how the information in the
forecast relates to the realistic options recipients have for
benefiting from it. Research should therefore be directed
separately at regions, groups, sectors, and institutions believed
to be important in terms of the costs of climatic variability or
the value of forecasts. Research should also be directed toward
developing a more complete taxonomy of coping strategies as a step
toward a theory of
OCR for page 131
Page 131
coping. As theory improves, it is likely to become clearer which
studies of decision makers and institutions are likely to be most
informative.
The research effort should recognize that value judgments are
inherent in any attempt to quantify the potential social benefit of
improved climate forecasts. Thus, it is not necessarily advisable
to seek a single metric, such as money, for evaluating all possible
improvements in forecast skill. The research effort should take
note of the fact that particular improvements in forecast skill may
benefit some users more than, or at the expense of, others, and
that the benefits and costs may be of different kinds, not easily
comparable. Decisions on research priorities should also take into
consideration the fact that some of the sectors, groups, or
countries that may have a great potential to benefit from improved
climate forecasts may have very limited capability to gain that
benefit without special efforts by government or international
agencies. Part of the research should concern the access of groups
and sectors to useful coping strategies because providing
additional coping strategies may make forecast information
considerably more valuable.
Research on this question should include efforts to identify the
effective responses available to actors in climate-sensitive
sectors and the major constraints on their action. It should
recognize that the usefulness of information may depend on the
coping strategies that affected actors use, the level of skill in
the forecast, its spatial or temporal resolution, the identity of
the climatic parameters that can be skillfully forecast, or other
attributes. The research would aim to match improvements in
forecast information to the informational needs of potential
forecast users. It would include efforts to estimate the benefit
that might be obtained from optimal responses to improved forecasts
with particular attributes. It would also consider constraints on
actors' ability to take advantage of information in climate
forecasts (e.g., the time sensitivity of decisions to renew
insurance contracts), which may be loosened either by improving
forecast skill or by changing the context of the decision. Research
on this question can help establish the likely social benefit of
improved forecasts in the current institutional environment and
help determine how much responses to forecasts might be improved by
policy interventions.
Various research methods are available for estimating the
potential benefits of improved climate forecasts. One general
approach is to build models that estimate the benefits that would
come from optimal response to forecasts. This approach estimates
the sensitivity of outcomes for particular sectors and groups to
particular climate parameters and the extent to which actors could
improve their outcomes given improved forecasts with given lead
times. It quantifies the benefit that forecast improvements might
bring to each sector and group. By using techniques such as
value-of-information analysis, sector-specific studies can estimate
the po-
OCR for page 132
Page 132
tential benefit to particular sectors of particular improvements
in forecast information.
Another general approach is based on querying the potential
users of climate forecast information to learn what they want to
know, when they need to know it to take advantage of the
information, what information sources they would use, how they use
currently available forecasts, and related questions. This strategy
can be pursued by using well-established survey methodologies with
representative samples of particular user groups. Skilled survey
research operations exist in many countries that are capable of
gathering high-quality data. However, careful attention must be
paid to the design of questions because of the limited experience
to date constructing reliable items on climate and climate
forecasting.
The user-focused approach can also be implemented by using
methods of structured discussion (e.g., workshops, conferences, and
ongoing advisory bodies) involving the producers and consumers of
forecasts: climate scientists, economic and social scientists,
government officials, and representatives from climate-sensitive
sectors and groups. This approach, although not quantitative like
surveys or modeling, provides a valuable supplement to them for at
least two reasons. First, the users of forecasts often have
knowledge about their information needs that may not readily occur
to modelers or the designers of survey instruments. Thus, dialogue
can facilitate the other methods. Second, ongoing interaction
between scientists and information users is likely to lead rather
quickly and directly to improvements in the ways climate
information is delivered. It may be a low-cost and efficient way of
conveying information to climate scientists.
Ideally, the modeling and user-based approaches should be
conducted in parallel. Models can identify kinds of forecast
information that users may never have anticipated getting that
would, in fact, be valuable to them. Models, interpreted in light
of their limitations, can also help set priorities for developing
forecast information on the basis of the potential benefit it can
provide. User-based approaches offer greater certainty that the
consumer's perspective is being conveyed to the producers of
forecasts. They have the added advantage of focusing attention on
information that is likely to be beneficial under actual, not only
optimal, conditions of use. Also, discussion methods are likely to
set in motion communication processes between producers and
consumers that will enhance mutual understanding and actual use of
forecast information.
Structured discussion methods are not yet very well developed,
however. Because of this, and because it is reasonable to presume
that discussions between the producers and consumers of forecasts
will continue to be useful for some time, it is important for
efforts that use the discussion
OCR for page 133
Page 133
approach to have an explicit evaluative component, to learn how
to conduct such discussions most effectively. This research should
collect data on how structured discussion methods function in order
to learn how best to organize them. Past research suggests that the
involvement of user representatives in defining research questions
and designing the messages that explain the research—a
participatory research approach—may greatly increase the
usefulness of scientific information. Research should be directed
toward learning how best to apply this principle in particular
types of situations.
2. Which regions, sectors, and actors
can benefit most from current forecast skill?
This research would proceed from the viewpoint of climate
science. It would begin with existing forecast capabilities and
explore how to get the most social benefit from the dissemination
of this forecast information. It would use the same modeling
approaches used to address the previous question in order to
estimate the value of forecast information if optimally used and
would also investigate differences between optimal and actual
response to forecasts among particular groups of users to identify
those that might gain significant additional benefit from available
forecast information under appropriate conditions.
Improved Dissemination of Forecast
Information
3. How do individuals conceptualize
climate variability and react to climate forecasts? What roles do
their expectations of climate variability play in their acceptance
and use of forecasts?
To improve the dissemination of forecast information, it is
necessary to develop a basic understanding of the perceptions,
beliefs, and mental models that individuals in different cultures
and climatic regions use to understand climatic variability and
interpret forecast information. Mental models should be
investigated for their accuracy, for how they respond to new
information, for how they incorporate information about
uncertainty, and for how they vary by geographical region, cultural
circumstances, education, and so forth. An issue of particular
importance is how people will interpret a probabilistic forecast as
a result of the perceived accuracy or inaccuracy of previous
forecasts.
This research should investigate the roles of cognitive and
affective mechanisms in the actual responses of individuals and
organizations to climate forecasts. In particular, the research
should examine the roles played by prior expectations of climate
variability, by interpretations of
OCR for page 134
Page 134
past forecasts, and by knowledge of adaptive coping strategies
and beliefs in their effectiveness. To the extent that such
expectations, interpretations, and knowledge are found to affect
the use of climate forecasts, research should address how accurate
expectations can be created and how an appropriate behavioral
repertoire can be established by educational and informational
interventions. To the extent that perceptions, expectations, and
beliefs are identified that act as barriers to the effective use of
climate forecasts, research should address how to alter those by
appropriately organized information or education. To the extent
that surprising (i.e., unexpected) outcomes are found to be
required to motivate individuals or organizations to modify their
beliefs and behavior, research should examine how to provide such
educational surprises at small costs. Comparative studies of these
questions across cultures and sectors may be particularly
informative, as they have the advantage of distinguishing between
components of those processes that are universally shared and those
that are culture- or situation-specific.
One promising approach to these questions is through case
studies of responses to short-range forecasts and to forecasts of
the 1997-1998 El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) warm
phase. Such research might examine how forecast information was
delivered by scientists, the mass media, private information
vendors, and others; who had access to the information; and how the
information was received, understood, and used. It might test
hypotheses developed from analogous situations to draw tentative
conclusions about which characteristics of forecast information and
its delivery increase its use by particular classes of recipients.
Other kinds of studies, including experimental ones, can refine
such tentative hypotheses and conclusions.
Research on these questions can be helpful in designing messages
that convey climate forecast information in ways that are
compatible with recipients' mental models, that accurately
represent uncertainty and probability, and that do not mislead them
about the level of skill the forecasts contain. Involvement of
forecast user groups in such research is likely to increase the
practical value of the findings.
4. How do organizations interpret
climatic information and react to climate forecasts? What are the
roles of organizational routines, cultures, structures, and
responsibilities in the use and acceptance of forecasts?
These questions parallel those under question 3. The research
would address the same questions, but it would focus on
organizational behavior. Among the important organizations for
study are firms in climate-sensitive sectors, organizations that
provide coping mechanisms (e.g., in-
OCR for page 135
Page 135
surance, reinsurance, disaster preparedness), and organizations
that might interpret forecast information for large numbers of
recipients (e.g., extension organizations, trade groups, mass media
organizations).
5. How do recipients of forecasts deal
with forecast uncertainty, the risk of forecast failure, and actual
forecast failure? What are the implications of these reactions for
the design of forecast information?
Research on this question should address the factors discussed
in Chapter 4 that are known to limit the usefulness of
probabilistic information in the context of climate forecasts.
Given the difficulty individuals and organizations typically have
in interpreting and acting on probabilistic information, research
should address how to translate the uncertainty of climate
forecasts into a format more compatible with the deterministic
nature of users' reactions to such forecasts. Research should also
examine the impact of different ways of communicating the inherent
uncertainty of forecasts and the risk of forecast failure on users'
willingness to use forecast information and on their reactions to
actual forecast failures. If insufficient confidence in
communicating climate forecasts hinders users' acceptance, and
overconfident communication aggravates the negative impact of
forecast failures, research should identify presentation styles and
information formats that maximize ex ante acceptance while
minimizing ex post disappointment. Comparative studies of these
questions should address the influence of individual and cultural
differences in interpreting uncertainty and forecast failure.
6. How are the effects of forecasts
shaped by aspects of the systems that disseminate information
(e.g., weather forecasting agencies, mass media) and of the
forecast messages? How do these effects interact with attributes of
the forecast users?
Research on these questions is key to understanding what makes
for effective delivery of climate forecast information. A major
focus should be on systems of information delivery. As Chapter 4
shows, research on responses to past climate forecasts and to
analogous kinds of information has generated several promising
hypotheses about how to deliver climate forecast information most
effectively. Further research on responses to recent climate
forecasts is likely to generate additional ones. However, such
hypotheses require testing and modification for future
applications. Research on information delivery might include
experiments with aspects of information delivery systems, such as
with participatory development of information and with the use of
communication channels specifically selected or designed to reach
particular sectors or types of actors
OCR for page 136
Page 136
within sectors, especially the low-income, poorly educated, and
cultural minority sectors that are often poorly served by
informational campaigns. It might investigate the potential roles
of trade associations, professional societies, and other groups
that might take on intermediary roles, interpreting forecast
information for particular user groups. It might examine how mass
media organizations process climate forecast information and how
information from mass media sources affects recipients'
understandings. It might experiment with organized interaction
between intermediaries and their audiences aimed at making
information more useful. It might also include experiments with
different ways of presenting particular climate forecasts and
measurement of their effects on users' levels of understanding and
their willingness to act. The evidence reviewed in Chapter 4
strongly suggests that involvement of forecast users in the design
of this kind of research can greatly increase the practical value
of the findings.
7. What are the ethical and legal
issues created by the dissemination of skillful, but uncertain,
climate forecasts?
Because seasonal forecasts can have significant benefits and
costs and because these may be distributed unevenly across human
populations and ecosystems, scientific climate forecasting raises
ethical and legal issues. Already, scientists and public officials
have been held responsible in court for costs associated with
actions taken using their forecasts. Ethical research questions
address when and how to issue forecasts, how to deal appropriately
with uncertainty, how forecast skill should be developed to achieve
an appropriate distribution of the benefits, and how ethical
beliefs (e.g., concerning the rights of nonhuman species or equity
among human populations) do and should affect the development,
presentation, and dissemination of forecast information. Legal
research questions include assessing case law regarding
responsibility for climate, weather, and analogous forecasts; the
treatment of scientific uncertainty in the legal system; the
relationship between impacts and liability settlements; and the
role of legal institutions (e.g., water and property rights) in
coping with climatic variability and climate forecasts.
Consequences of Climatic Variability
and of Forecasts
8. How are the human consequences of
climatic variability shaped by the conjunctions and dynamic
relationships between climatic events and social and other
nonclimatic factors? How
OCR for page 137
Page 137
do seasonal forecasts interact with other factors and types
of information in ways that affect the value of forecasts?
Climatic variations influence resource productivity, economic
development, and human and ecosystem health, but these impacts are
typically mediated or exacerbated by coping strategies and by other
trends and events such as demographic and technological changes,
economic and political conditions, and resource management
strategies. Improving the capability to estimate the human
consequences of climatic variations requires improved understanding
of the social and other non-climatic phenomena that combine with
climatic ones to produce these consequences. For example, the many
studies of climatic impacts on agriculture show clearly that yields
depend not only on climate but also on available technology, soils,
prices, agricultural policies, and individual farm management. In
the general case, the effects of climatic variations may depend on
population growth in and migration to areas that experience large
climate variations; economic and infrastructural development in
such areas; the level of dependence of human populations on food
and other essential goods and services delivered from outside their
immediate vicinity; technologies and practices affecting land use
and water demand; the distribution of economic resources; the
levels of income and education among affected actors; the
availability of insurance and insurance-like institutions; the
structure of markets for the supplies and outputs of affected
actors; and the condition of formal emergency warning and response
systems. Research on the effects of climatic variability should
distinguish the effects of climate from those of such variables as
these and clarify the dependency of climatic effects on these other
variables. A variety of methods is available for these tasks, as
shown in Chapter 5.
Some of the nonclimatic events that influence climatic impacts
change systematically over time. For example, future hurricane
damage is highly dependent on trends in population migration and
the rate of building construction and in certain coping systems,
such as the adoption of hurricane-resistant building codes and
practices, as well as on storm frequency and intensity. The
specific effects of these and other nonclimatic factors on the
sensitivity of particular sectors are not well understood, however.
Future research should examine how changes in social conditions
affect the sensitivity of particular groups and activities to
particular kinds of climate variation.
This research should especially emphasize climatic variations
about which predictive skill is improving, human activities and
groups that are believed to be highly sensitive or vulnerable to
these variations, and human activities and groups that may become
increasingly vulnerable as a
OCR for page 138
Page 138
result of social changes. The research would identify
opportunities for policy changes that might reduce the likelihood
of catastrophic outcomes or increase the ability of human
activities and groups to benefit from expected climate variations
and from forecasts of them. In conjunction with research on coping
strategies, this research would make it possible to estimate the
future benefits of climate forecasts in the context of expected
future social conditions.
9. How are the effects of forecasts
shaped by the coping systems available to affected groups and
sectors? How might improved forecasts change coping mechanisms and
how might changes in coping systems make forecasts more
valuable?
To estimate and increase the value of climate forecasts to
society, it is necessary to understand the current coping systems
available to groups and sectors of society. Coping mechanisms for
dealing with climate variability are both formal and informal and
range from individual behaviors to national policy. Some coping
systems will enhance the benefits from forecasts, whereas the
limited flexibility of others may constrain the ability to take
advantage of the information. Research should be conducted on how
improved forecasts may alter currently effective coping strategies
(e.g., how better forecasts might change the products of the plant
breeding industry, the use of insurance by farmers and other
vulnerable actors, and the operation of the insurance and industry
and government relief programs). Research should also be conducted
on the public policies and institutional mechanisms that affect
coping strategies (e.g., government farm subsidies) to gain
understanding of how well they serve to mitigate the negative
effects of climate variations and how they might serve best in an
environment of improved forecast skill. Research should also
explore issues of access to coping strategies that might benefit
particular groups. It should address the ways the usefulness and
value of forecasts may depend on changes in coping systems as a
result of such forces as population changes, migration, economic
development, and political changes, as well as the potential for
modifying coping systems so as to make forecasts more valuable.
10. Which methods should be used to
estimate the effects of climate variation and climate
forecasts?
A variety of modeling strategies and discussion-based
qualitative methods is available for estimating these effects, and
there is a place for many of them given the current state of
knowledge. Some methods may be more accurate or more useful for
certain purposes, and other methods for other purposes. Some of the
research on this question should examine
OCR for page 139
Page 139
and compare the outputs of different modeling methods to shed
light on the usefulness of each as well as to increase
understanding of the underlying phenomena. Some of the research
should use discussions, surveys, and other techniques to estimate
the effects of climatic events and of forecasts. A special focus of
nonmodeling research should be on outcomes for which good
quantitative data do not exist or for which the value of
quantitative data is uncertain.
11. How will the gains and losses from
improved forecasts be distributed among those affected? To what
extent might improved forecasting skill exacerbate socioeconomic
inequalities among individuals, sectors, and countries? How might
the distribution of gains and losses be affected by policies
specifically aimed at bringing the benefits of forecasts to
marginalized and vulnerable groups?
Research on this question should examine who might gain and lose
from improved forecasts and the factors affecting the distribution
of gains and losses. This research is of more than academic
interest, as various public policy decisions may affect the
distribution of benefits and costs from forecasts. For example, the
benefits of agricultural innovations and many kinds of information
have flowed first to large-scale, well-educated actors. It is
important to anticipate whether climate forecast information is
likely to be distributed in ways that follow that model and to
examine the effects of targeted efforts to deliver the information
to groups otherwise unlikely to benefit. Similarly, the response of
the insurance industry (including firms, reinsurers, and regulatory
authorities) to forecasts will lead to differential effects as a
function of who is insured and how. Policies could alter these
effects. Institutional changes, such as in water rights laws, may
also affect the distribution of the benefits of forecasts. In
developing countries, access to world markets or government
regulation of agricultural prices might interact with the
availability of forecasts in determining the distribution of
benefits.
Decisions about who distributes forecast information (e.g.,
national weather services, extension organizations, private-sector
vendors) also have implications for the distribution of the
benefits and costs of forecasts. In general, public policies
adopted for a variety of purposes may affect access to forecast
information and the ability to make adjustments in response to
climate forecasts. Thus, research illuminating the distribution of
the benefits of climate forecasts and the effects of policy
interventions on this distribution is likely to be relevant to a
wide range of public policy choices. In addition, research might
examine the possibility that, even if everyone made optimal
responses to better forecasts, these re-
OCR for page 140
Page 140
sponses would leave some groups worse off than they would have
been without the forecasts. This might happen, for example, to
farmers who cannot increase their production while farmers in
another region use forecasts to produce a bumper crop that drives
down prices.
12. How adequate are existing data for
addressing questions about the consequences of climate variability
and the value and consequences of climate forecasts? To what extent
are existing data sources underexploited?
For example, can existing data sets that have emerged from
socioeconomic panel surveys in many countries of the world be
fruitfully merged with appropriately geocoded information on
climate and weather over time to better quantify the effects of
climate variability? What is the value of surveys that elicit
speculative information on what respondents would do differently
with forecast information or what they would have done differently
if they did not have such information (such as in the 1997-1998 El
Niño event) for estimating the true impact of improved
forecasts? Can existing demonstration projects provide adequate
information on the value of existing forecast data? Are long-term
ecological research sites areas in which adding a human dimension
to the data collected would provide improved information on the
relationship between human behavior and climate variation?
The Value of Studying Past Climate
Fluctuations and Forecasts
Past climate fluctuations (e.g., droughts, heat waves, flooding)
provide natural experiments to examine ex post responses of human
systems and the environment. They are the only situations that
permit direct observation of human and institutional behavior in
response to dynamic climate. The same is true with past climate
forecasts. Such natural experiments potentially reveal important
details about the sensitivities of human activities to climate
variability and about responses to forecasts. They can be used to
help identify and quantify biophysical responses to climate
fluctuation, social costs and benefits of both the climatic events
and any available forecasts, and coping mechanisms. Careful
analysis of the effects of past forecasts would allow the
forecasting community to benefit from seeing how the forecasts were
used (or not used), how forecast use was shaped by the forecast
information and its delivery, and what can be done to improve the
usability of the forecasts. There have been a number of natural
experiments in recent years, including, in the United States,
forecasts in relation to the drought of 1988, the Mississippi flood
of 1993, and various forecasts of hurricane tracks. Of course, the
1997-1998 El
OCR for page 141
Page 141
Niño and its forecasts have presented a highly relevant
natural experiment that deserves detailed study as a way of
investigating most of the scientific questions listed here. In
interpreting such natural experiments, it is important to consider
such variables as the length of lead time forecasts offer and the
degree of confidence scientists have in their forecasts.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
climate forecasts