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4
Making Climate Forecast Information More Useful
Skillful climate forecasts are valuable to society to the extent
that they provide knowledge that can be used to cope better with
climate variations. This chapter examines what forecasts might
offer to improve the outcomes of weather-sensitive activities and
what is known about how individuals and organizations are likely to
interpret and use forecast information. We first consider what
kinds of climate forecast knowledge might prove valuable. We then
examine the limited available information about how coping systems
have actually responded to skillful seasonal-to-interannual climate
forecasts, supplementing this with other sources of insight,
including basic knowledge about human information processing and
knowledge about human use of information in situations that may be
relevant by analogy. This examination yields a set of hypotheses
about the characteristics that make forecast messages and
information systems useful.
Useful Information that Climate
Forecasts Might Provide
Chapter 3 shows the variety of ways in which individuals and
organizations cope with variable climates. 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. As the
following examples show, different kinds of
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forecast information are useful, depending on the
climate-sensitive sector, the region, and the coping strategies
used.
In agriculture, a forecast is useful to the extent that it
permits more advantageous ex ante actions, such as altered choice
of crop species and cultivars and timing of tillage (Mjelde et al.,
1988) or altered composition or allocation of herds (Stafford Smith
and Foran, 1992; Ellis and Swift, 1988). For example, a skillful
forecast may allow a farmer to diversify less and to match cropping
decisions more closely to expected climatic events. A farmer who
can anticipate that rainfall is likely to be unusually ample can
grow seeds that are sensitive to water availability to improve
profits; conversely, a farmer who knows that there is a high
probability that rainfall will be unusually low can conserve on
inputs, use less water-sensitive inputs, or refrain from
application of any unfruitful inputs at all. Forecasts of growing
season length or degree-days may be useful in similar ways.
However, forecasts are helpful only if they arrive before planting
or stocking decisions are made and if the producer is capable of
responding. Some responses, such as changing livestock species, may
require resources available only to the most successful
producers.
Regional conditions affect the usefulness of forecasts. In South
Asia, where models of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
allow for fairly skillful predictions of average temperature and
precipitation several months in advance, it might seem that climate
forecasts would be broadly useful to farmers. But this may not be
so. Forecasts can benefit the 10 to 15 percent of farmers in the
semiarid areas who would lose money by planting in bad-climate
years (Rosenzweig and Binswanger, 1993): they could decide not to
farm. But the majority of farmers, who can expect to profit even in
a dry year, might not benefit from the forecasts. The reason is
that no farming practices can be undertaken prior to the onset of
the monsoon, so that even if a long-range forecast of the monsoon
onset could be made, it would provide no benefit. A prediction of
the magnitude of the monsoon may also provide no benefit to farmers
whose practices would be the same regardless of its magnitude.
Institutional factors may affect the value of forecasts. In the
United States, the usefulness of a climate forecast may depend in
complex ways on whether a farmer is covered by crop insurance. Some
analysts (e.g., Gardner et al., 1984) argue that federally
subsidized crop insurance imposes a ''moral hazard'' by encouraging
farmers to take imprudent risks, for example, by being less
diversified and more dependent on dryland practices in regions of
marginal climate than their uninsured counterparts. 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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ful depending on the decision and its context. For example,
water managers in the western United States typically base
streamflow forecasts on existing hydrologic conditions (e.g.,
current water content of the snowpack) and historic records of
high, normal, and low precipitation during the remainder of the
forecast period. This procedure gives managers a rough indication
of the upper and lower bounds and most likely inflow conditions for
the system. Climate forecasts can improve decisions based on this
procedure if they provide more accurate expectations about rainfall
at the watershed level. However, the value of such forecasts is
likely to hinge on whether adequate representations of forecast
accuracy and uncertainty are provided. Forecasts may also help
water project managers inform irrigators, whose water entitlements
are calculated as a share of the available supply, of impending
shortfalls early in the season so they can make adjustments.
Although such advice may be helpful, if it is based on a
poor-quality forecast or on unskilled interpretation of the
forecast, water users may take inappropriate actions, such as
fallowing unnecessarily or incurring unneeded expenses for wells or
water purchases to protect perennial crops. An example involving
such outcomes is discussed in the next section.
The usefulness of forecasts also depends on the state of
preexisting water management institutions. 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). Forecasts
that give additional lead time might also allow more efficient
adjustments by enabling irrigation districts and individual
irrigators to plan more effectively for fallowing, crop switching,
or other methods of water use reduction and for improved operation
of water banks.
The insurance industry and its clients might benefit from
forecasts that accurately estimate the probabilities of hurricanes,
floods, droughts, or wildfires striking policy holders in
particular areas. For example, insurers and reinsurers could
calculate premiums based on risk rather than history. However, this
would be an improvement only if available predictions are
sufficiently accurate and if insurance regulators allow the change.
The usefulness of forecasts to insurers is also constrained by
difficulties transforming the kinds of information forecasts
provide into forms used in insurance firms' procedures of risk
analysis (Golnaraghi, 1997). Crop insurers might use climate
forecasts to decide how much
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reinsurance to purchase. This information is needed with enough
lead time—which can be several months—to sign with the
federal government for reinsurance. Forecasts as little as one
month in advance may be sufficient to help insurers provide farmers
with risk-management services (Golnaraghi, 1997).
Climate forecasts might give public health systems an
unprecedented degree of early warning of the likelihood of
epidemics, based on climatic or ecological analysis before disease
organisms appear. ENSO forecasts, to the extent they can be linked
to conditions conducive to disease outbreaks (Epstein et al.,
1995), may facilitate early public health interventions. Taking
advantage of the forecasts would require a sufficient level of
knowledge to link climate parameters to ecological events affecting
disease organisms, an adequate surveillance system, and appropriate
training and communication systems for health early warning. Given
these advances, public health responses might include
immunizations, neighborhood clean-ups, and pesticide applications.
For example, a combination of climate forecasting and remote
sensing imagery can help in preparing for outbreaks of eastern
equine encephalitis by determining where and when temporary pools
of standing water are likely to appear and how long they may last.
With such information, it is possible to take preventive action to
control the population of infected Aedes vexans mosquitoes
with larvicide applications. Because maturation of larvae to adults
occurs in about seven days, accurate information on standing pools
of water after a rain is necessary within two days, to allow time
for dip sampling and application of larvicide (Epstein et al.,
1993a).
In the energy industry, improved forecast skill might help gas
companies with inventory management and with anticipating price
fluctuations. 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. Among the attributes of climate information that are
frequently important are lead time, the particular climatic
parameters being forecast, the spatial and temporal resolution of
the forecast, and its accuracy. These are discussed in more detail
at the end of the chapter.
Whatever new information forecasts provide, some actors may
benefit more than others because they are in better positions to
take advantage of the information. For example, some individuals
may have more
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savings or better access to credit that allows them to take
better advantage of a forecast of favorable climatic conditions.
Some may own a specialized resource, such as a senior water right
or a piece of farmland whose value varies with climatic conditions.
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), by the availability of insurance and
credit, and by the design of disaster preparedness and relief
programs. It is possible that, in some sectors or regions, the
overall benefits of climate forecasts may be distributed so that
some groups gain greatly while others do not benefit at all, or
even find themselves worse off. If such outcomes arose, they might
greatly dampen enthusiasm for climate forecasting.
Responses To Past Climate
Predictions
A useful source of information on how weather-sensitive sectors
and actors may respond to climate forecasts in the future is their
response to past climate forecasts. Unfortunately, skillful
forecasts are very recent, so there has been relatively little
opportunity to learn from experience. A few case studies have been
done of situations in which affected groups have acted on climate
or hydrological forecasts on the time scale of months. Three are
described below, with the tentative lessons that seem to flow from
them. This body of research is far too limited to treat these
lessons as more than hypotheses. However, they are valuable because
they show responses to actual climate forecasts. Systematic studies
based on responses to forecasts of the 1997-1998 El Niño
could add greatly to understanding.
Drought Forecasts in the Yakima
Valley
Glantz (1982) examined the case of an erroneous forecast of
drought in the Yakima valley of Washington state in 1977.
Irrigation in the Yakima valley supports some high-value crops,
including orchards and mint. In February 1977, the Bureau of
Reclamation forecast that water available for summer irrigation in
the valley would be less than 50 percent of normal. On the basis of
this forecast, they told senior water rights holders that they
would receive 90 percent of their allocations and more junior water
rights holders that they would only receive 6 percent of their
normal allocations—insufficient to protect their perennial
crops and orchards from drought. Farmers responded by drilling deep
wells at costs of $25,000 to $250,000 per farmer; deciding not to
plant a crop but to fallow;
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leasing or selling water to those with perennial crops at up to
four times the normal price; transplanting valuable crops to
regions with senior water rights; and weather modification
activities costing $400,000.
As the season advanced, the bureau revised its forecast, and by
May, long after most of these adjustments had been made, it
announced that junior rights holders would, in fact, receive 50
percent of their allocations. By the end of the summer, it was
clear that water supplies had been almost 83 percent of normal and
that junior rights holders had received 70 percent of normal
allocations—more than enough to protect crops and orchards
against drought damage without dramatic adjustments. Farmers were
sufficiently angry about having spent large sums on unnecessary
adjustments in response to the bureau's erroneous forecast that
they sued the bureau for more than $20 million in
compensation—a suit that never went to trial.
Glantz discusses several specific problems with the bureau's
forecast, including estimation errors in the original prediction
(they had failed to include return flow), poor communication of
uncertainties, and lack of openness about errors in the forecast.
Long-standing institutional water rights arrangements also created
a very difficult situation for junior rights holders faced with a
drought forecast. Several lessons can be drawn from the Yakima
study. The most striking is that responses based on acceptance of
erroneous forecasts can have serious economic, distributive, and
legal consequences. The case also suggests the need to check
forecasts very carefully for errors before releasing them, to
clearly communicate uncertainties and the message that forecasts
evolve during a season, and to consider how institutional
frameworks can redistribute the impacts of a forecast as well as
the event.
ENSO-based Forecasts in Northeast
Brazil, 1991-1992 and 1996
Droughts sometimes associated with El Niño have often
caused serious agricultural losses and human suffering in northeast
Brazil, a region where there is widespread poverty and
vulnerability to climatic variations. In addition, the cold phase
of ENSO, La Niña, is associated with abundant rainfall over
the region, sometimes leading to floods that also disrupt the
region's economy. Researchers in climate modeling have used the
onset of El Niño 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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In 1983, when no preparations were made for El Niño,
yields of cotton, rice, beans, and corn were less than 50 percent
of normal. In the state of Ceara, corn yields fell from 0.54 to
0.12 tons per hectare. The government spent $1.8 billion in
short-term relief, which included employing 3 million people in
public works to construct irrigation systems and reservoirs and
trucking in drinking water. By contrast, the state government of
Ceara responded vigorously to a forecast of the 1991-1992 El
Niño, which was released by the state's Foundation for
Meteorological and Hydrological Resources (FUNCEME) (Golnaraghi and
Kaul, 1995). The government instituted several policies, including
guiding farmers on what and when to plant (distributing seeds more
resistant to water stress and maintaining a strict planting
calendar); controlling water consumption in Fortaleza (Ceara's
capital city); and rushing the construction of a new dam on the
Pacajus River. Policy implementation included the organization of a
grassroots campaign in which the governor himself traveled through
the state's countryside to vouch for the reliability of FUNCEME's
forecast and the benefits that could stem from its application.
One way to estimate the value of the forecast is by comparing
agricultural output in 1987 and 1992. During the 1987 El
Niño episode, 30 percent less rainfall resulted in output of
approximately 15.5 percent of the region's mean output; in 1992,
when rainfall was 27 percent below normal, agricultural output in
Ceara was approximately 82 percent of the region's mean. These data
suggest that the application of a seasonal forecast greatly
benefited agricultural output.
However, a recent study of the social implications of seasonal
forecasting in northeast Brazil (Lemos et al., 1998) suggests that
the picture is much more complex. 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 Heller, 1977). Drought and high rainfall in northeast Brazil
may also be associated with other phenomena, such as Atlantic sea
surface temperatures and the movement of the intertropical
convergence zone. In addition, many small and subsistence farmers
have little flexibility in responding to forecasts (Lemos et al.,
1998).
The credibility of seasonal forecasts in northeast Brazil was
reduced in 1996 when FUNCEME's seasonal forecast of higher than
normal rainfall proved inaccurate. As a result, policy makers were
very cautious about issuing a forecast of the 1997-1998 El
Niño, and there was considerable skepticism among the
public. Forecasters delayed issuing a forecast in 1997 and farmers
were reluctant to change their strategies; the consequences are not
yet fully known. Another cause of resistance to seasonal
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forecasts in northeast Brazil is that the prediction of a
drought raises a set of unpleasant expectations for many in the
region. Past governments typically responded to droughts with
large-scale relief efforts that included infrastructure projects
and emergency food and work projects and that sent relief funds to
certain powerful interests and created a sense of dependency in the
population. Many policy makers are concerned about drought
forecasts because they do not want, nor can they afford, to
perpetuate this drought "industry" (Magalhaes and Magee, 1994).
The case of northeast Brazil provides several lessons about the
value of seasonal forecasting in a region where drought can have
devastating impacts. It demonstrates the ease with which
forecasters can lose their nerve, and the public its trust, as a
result of an inaccurate forecast such as occurred in 1996, and the
implications for subsequent forecasting efforts. It also shows that
some farmers are unable to use seasonal forecasts because they do
not have the resources or flexibility to respond. 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. Since the 1970s, the U.S. government has
used climate information to anticipate the onset of famine, to
target people at risk, to reduce response time, and to estimate
food and other relief requirements, especially in Africa (Walker,
1989; Hutchinson, 1998). The U.S. Agency for International
Development has had a warning system for Sub-Saharan Africa since
1981, initially based on information about rainfall, vegetation,
and crop yields. The key indicator has been a vegetation index,
derived from the AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer)
satellite of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
which provides information about the progress of the rainy season
through monitoring the productivity of natural pasture and
large-scale agriculture. Forecasts of seasonal agricultural
production are made based on past relationships between early
season rainfall and yields. The famine early warning systems can be
considered a form of seasonal forecasting because they anticipate
conditions up to 6 months in advance, through a combination of
qualitative assessment and crop predictions.
By the mid-1980s it was obvious that biophysical information
needed to be linked to socioeconomic information in order to
provide useful famine warning because famine is created as much by
social, economic and political conditions as by drought. Thus, the
system now couples a wide
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variety of biophysical and satellite measurements with
information on health and nutrition, agricultural inputs and
markets, and indicators of socioeconomic stress such as livestock
and jewelry sales. These indicators are combined into country
reports (e.g., for Ethiopia or Mali), which are published and
distributed on a regular basis as the growing season progresses and
used to plan any relief efforts. Local governments and
nongovernmental organizations receive the reports as well as U.S.
government and international agencies.
Several lessons can be drawn from the experience with famine
early warning systems for the new developments in seasonal
forecasting. These include the importance of combining
environmental and social information to provide accurate
assessments of agricultural production and other social impacts and
the value of including local decision makers and nongovernmental
organizations in the development and distribution of forecasts.
Indirect Sources of Insight into
Responses to Climate Forecasts
Although climate forecasts have been widely available in the
United States for more than three decades from government,
academic, and private sources, little is known about how they are
used. 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.
Beliefs About Weather and Climate
Until recently, nonspecialists' beliefs about weather, climate,
and climate changes and variations have been of interest mainly to
academic anthropologists. Research on ethnometeorology, perceptions
of weather, and hundreds of other topics in nonwestern societies
can be examined through the web site of the Human Relations Area
Files at Yale University (http://www.yale.edu/hraf/home.htm). Many
traditional societies, including those in ENSO-sensitive areas,
have long-standing and complex theories about weather and climate,
some of which they use for forecasting deviations from seasonal
averages (e.g., Antunez de Mayolo, 1981; Ramnath, 1988; Bharara and
Seeland, 1994; Pepin, 1996; Eakin, 1998).
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Cultures that are highly dependent on variable climate-ecosystem
relationships tend to observe these relationships closely, so their
skill in forecasting may have increased over time. Many elements of
traditional forecasting methods are in fact explainable by modern
scientific principles (Pepin, 1996); however, there has been little
if any investigation of how much skill these forecasting systems
provide. The persistence of folk theories of climate does not
establish their predictive value: some of them, particularly those
tied closely to religious rituals, may serve mainly to allay
anxiety among people utterly dependent on unpredictable and
variable climatic events (Wilken, 1987).
Whatever their level of skill, the existence of traditional
climate forecasts has implications for the coping strategies people
use and for their acceptance of information from modern climate
forecasts (e.g., Oguntoyinbo and Richards, 1978). 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. On the negative side, adherents of
traditional forecasting systems may resist new systems, even if
they are more skillful, and once modern forecasting systems are
adopted, any value the traditional explanatory systems may have for
purposes other than climate forecasting (e.g., forecasting crop
diseases) may be discredited or lost.
There has been little research in Western societies on beliefs
about seasonal-to-interannual climate variability. However,
research on beliefs about climate change suggests that people tend
to assimilate new information about climate into cognitive
structures or mental models that they use for conceptually related
matters—other environmental problems affecting the atmosphere.
For example, nonspecialists frequently confuse climate change and
stratospheric ozone depletion; there is also a widespread belief
that "air pollution" (which for many people is associated with
phenmena like smog, ozone alerts, and acid rain) is a cause of
climate change (Kempton, 1991; Löfstedt, 1992, 1995).
Weber (1997) found a strong effect of mental models on
perceptions of climate change and variability among cash-crop
farmers in the U.S. Midwest. Their beliefs about climate change had
more effect than length of personal experience on their ability to
detect recent increases in maximum July average temperatures in
their locality and in the variability of those temperatures.
Farmers with longer experience were slightly less likely to notice
the recent warming, but a much more reliable predictor was whether
or not the farmers believed in global warming. The majority of
believers in global warming correctly detected and classified the
temperature increase, which fit their mental models, whereas the
majority of
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disbelievers incorrectly remembered no change in maximum July
temperatures. The disbelievers were more accurate, however, in
detecting increased variability in recent temperatures, probably
because they interpreted recent increases in average high
temperatures as reflecting variability rather than a trend.
Human Information Processing and
Climate Information
Recent advances in cognitive psychology regarding information
processing provide insight that can be applied to human beliefs
about weather and climate and can put the above findings into a
conceptual framework. This research has established that people are
not passive recipients of information that they accumulate and
store for future reference; rather, they attend to and encode
information selectively. Also, people often construct beliefs when
needed for a situation, rather than simply recalling them from
memory (Payne et al., 1992). Such construction has been shown to be
based on mental models of the phenomenon under question, which
usually involve causal connections between variables in the mental
model but often omit relevant variables and their relationships
(Bostrom et al., 1994). 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
illustrates how human beings assimilate climatic information into
preexisting mental models—and the shortcomings of this
cognitive strategy (from Kupperman, 1982). It also shows that
predictions based on preexisting mental models often survive a long
series of disconfirming empirical evidence.
English settlers who arrived in North America in the early
colonial period operated under the assumption that climate was a
function of latitude. Newfoundland, which is south of London, was
thus expected to have a moderate climate, and Virginia was expected
to have the climate of southern Spain. Despite high death rates due
to weather that was consistently much colder than expected, the
resulting failure of settlements, and pressure from investors
disappointed by the colonies' inability to produce the rich
commodities associated with hot climates, colonists clung with
persistence to their expectations about the local climate based on
latitude. Reluctant to accept the different climatic conditions as
a new fact in need of explanation, they instead generated ever more
complex rationalizations and alternative explanations for these
persistent deviations from their expectations. Samuel de Champlain,
for example, took a single mild winter in 1610 as indication that
his mild climate expectations
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to deliver climate forecast information. A first step toward
understanding them is to identify their parts; a second is to
examine the readiness and ability of these parts to assimilate,
interpret, and transmit the information in climate forecasts and to
interact effectively with each other. The research literature on
information systems for disaster provides a long list of relevant
questions to ask (Mileti and Sorenson, 1990).
3.
Use participation to enhance information delivery. In the
health field, "people are more likely to change and maintain the
change in their behavior if they have participated actively in
setting the goals and plans for the change" (Green, 1984:221-222).
Striking support for the value of community-based and initiated and
peer education programs comes from research on high-risk behavior
and AIDS transmission (Aggleton et al., 1994), and a review of the
literature on health promotion has concluded that active
involvement of people in their own health care—patient
education, self-care groups, and so forth—could bring about
significant reductions in risk factors for chronic diseases (Green
and Kreuter, 1990). Similar conclusions have been drawn regarding
proenvironmental behavior. For example, participatory approaches
have been said to make education more effective because they give
greater access to target audiences and provide increased
credibility (Gardner and Stern, 1996). Research on disaster
warnings emphasizes the need for local officials and organizations
to learn and practice their responsibilities in advance of
warnings, although it does not emphasize the value of their
participation in designing the information (Mileti and Sorenson,
1990).
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.
4.
Combine information with other intervention types for
enhanced effect. The field of health behavior emphasizes the
powerful influences of individuals' contexts on their behavior. In
fact, the concept of health promotion evolved from the earlier one
of health education largely because of the difficulty of changing
behavior solely by targeting information to individuals.
Researchers have concluded that the most effective programs use
combinations of individual and structural strategies, such as
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health education combined with organizational, economic, and
environmental supports for the behavior (Green, 1984; Becker and
Rosenstock, 1989).
Similarly, education for proenvironmental behavior has been
found to work best when combined with other strategies of
intervention (Gardner and Stern, 1996). Education and information
address only some of the barriers to proenvironmental
behavior—ignorance, misinformation, and the like.
Interventions tend to be most effective when they also address
contextual factors that serve as barriers to actions in the
audience's particular situation.
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).
5.
Apply principles of persuasive communication, subject to
audience willingness to accept direct influence attempts. These
principles, which derive from decades of research (e.g., Hovland et
al., 1953; McGuire, 1969, 1985), have been elaborated in great
detail in the disaster warning literature (Drabek and Boggs, 1968;
Mileti, 1975; Quarantelli, 1980; Perry et al., 1981; Mileti et al.,
1992). This literature distinguishes between public alerts and
public warnings. Alerts, such as sirens or short "crawlers" across
the bottom of television screens, draw people's attention to the
need to obtain additional information. Warnings, which provide that
additional information, must be available if large-scale public
protective action is to follow. Effective shorter-term warnings
(hours to days before the expected event) contain short and simple
information about the expected risk, tell people how much time they
have to complete the recommended actions, identify the experts and
officials giving the warning, are repeated frequently over the
original communication channel and many others, and, most
importantly, give people guidance about what to do to protect
themselves.
Longer-term warnings (days to months or years before the
expected event) work most effectively when they are planned as
long-term communication processes or campaigns rather than as
singular acts. An example would be multiple communications via
electronic media for several months, followed by distribution of
written material such as a brochure mailed to people's homes or a
publicized newspaper insert, followed by several additional months
of other communications. Information campaigns like these are most
effective when supplemented by distributing additional useful
written documents and pamphlets in the community at risk for people
obtain when they have the interest. An ongoing communication
process generates public interest, fosters addi-
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tional information seeking, and thus promotes protective
responses. Written means of communication, such as newspapers, are
the most used by the U.S. general public to obtain longer-term
warning information.
These conclusions are consistent with results from the other
literatures, although researchers in the other fields are less
sanguine about the effectiveness of information campaigns if
unaccompanied by other strategies. The discrepancy may be due to
some special characteristics of immediate disasters. It is
relatively easy to recognize the importance of disaster predictions
and to judge their accuracy, relative to predictions about
long-term threats to personal health or environmental quality.
Those who warn of oncoming floods and hurricanes on the time scale
of hours to days have developed a widely recognized track record of
predictive skill, and the outcomes for those who heeded or ignored
past warnings are easy for nonexperts to interpret. These
characteristics may make some kinds of disaster warnings more
convincing than many other kinds of warnings.
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 warnings.
6.
Information delivery systems are inequitable. The typical
strategies for delivering information—distribution of written
material, publication in newspapers, presentation in broadcast news
stories, and so forth—are oriented primarily to the educated,
the affluent, the cultural majority, and people in power. The
distribution systems are largely controlled by government or
wealthy corporations. In implementation, information sent through
these channels is least effective in reaching the elderly, cultural
minority groups, people with low incomes, and those without power.
These biases can be counteracted to a degree by designing
information systems specifically to reach marginalized groups, for
example, by involving information sources that these groups use and
trust as information providers (Perry and Greene, 1982; Perry,
1987; Stern et al., 1986).
Alternative Models for Designing
Information Programs
The above general principles have coalesced into somewhat
different approaches to disseminating information in different
fields. In the health promotion field, a community-based approach
to health has developed that pursues what a study by the Institute
of Medicine has called a "willing compliance" model of change, as
distinguished from an "authoritarian" model (Institute of Medicine,
1997:68; see also Evans and Stoddart,
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1994; Patrick and Wickizer, 1995). This approach seeks to
develop community coalitions that involve the affected groups, to
use these coalitions to identify health priorities, and to maintain
these coalitions throughout the process of implementing
community-based efforts to bring about change. 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.
The divergence in the lessons drawn from research in apparently
analogous fields may be reconciled by examining the various
purposes and contexts of information programs. A National Research
Council (1989) study that examined risk communication about a broad
range of health, safety, and environmental hazards distinguished
two distinct and sometimes conflicting purposes for providing
information about hazards: to inform audiences and to influence
them. The study pointed out that the appropriateness (especially
for government) of using messages to influence people to respond in
particular ways to hazards is judged quite differently depending on
which behaviors are being promoted, the degree of scientific
consensus about the information being delivered, the compatibility
of government influence with individual autonomy and related
values, and the influence techniques employed in designing the
message (National Research Council, 1989:80-93).
In this light, the differential emphasis on "participatory" and
"authoritarian" models of communication in different fields most
likely reflects the content and history of the fields. In certain
environmental risk areas, such as management of potentially
carcinogenic chemicals and radioactive materials, a high degree of
uncertainty and controversy has surrounded scientific information;
it is not always evident which actions are most appropriate for
reducing risk; and there is a long history of accusations,
sometimes substantiated, that corporations and government agencies
have misinformed the public. Highly participatory approaches are
necessary in these areas to allow for discussions of how to proceed
under uncertainty and to address the problem of mistrust of
official sources of information. In other areas, such as earthquake
engineering, commercial aviation, hurricane warning, and infectious
disease, the historical legacy of risk communication includes
greater consensus on how to reduce risks, a much higher level of
trust in expert sources of information, and a greater willingness
to accept authoritarian styles of communication.
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A more recent National Research Council study reached similar
conclusions. It found that developing a useful understanding of
risks depends ''on incorporating the perspectives of the interested
and affected parties from the earliest phases of the effort to
understand the risks'' in order to meet "the challenges of asking
the right questions, making the appropriate assumptions, and
finding the right ways to summarize information" (National Research
Council, 1996b:3). This study proposed a participatory strategy for
developing most kinds of environmental information, recognizing,
however, that the most effective degree and type of participation
is situation specific.
What kind of model is most appropriate for delivering climate
forecast information? Without much of a base in empirical
knowledge, it is necessary to hypothesize on the basis of analogy.
In our judgment, the context of climate forecast information at its
current stage of development is more similar to that of information
about health promotion, energy conservation, and hazardous
substances than to that of short-term disaster warnings. There is
too much uncertainty and potential controversy about what the
available scientific information implies for human response to use
an authoritarian approach aimed at influencing people. Even an
authoritarian style of informing people seems inappropriate because
of the large gaps in knowledge about which information would be
decision relevant for which recipients. 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.
The evidence from analogs suggests that in the future, if and
when the accuracy and importance of climate forecasts is
convincingly demonstrated to users and forecasts are prepared and
presented in ways that meet users' information needs, something
more like the disaster warning model of information delivery may
prove effective. However, inappropriately high levels of expressed
confidence in forecasts, acrimonious controversy about forecasting
models, and forecasts that deliver information recipients perceive
as irrelevant are all likely to delay the coming of such a future.
These judgments, of course, are preliminary and should be tested by
empirical research.
An example from Mexico illustrates one way a participatory
approach to developing forecast information might proceed.
Dialogues between climate forecasters and forecast users have led
to an effort to seek a com-
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promise between climatological research agendas and the needs of
users. As a result, Mexican climatologists have begun to work on
correlating the frequency of "black" frosts with El Niño
years despite the extreme difficulty of predicting frost hazards.
They have done this largely because consultations with farmers have
shown that frost is one of the greatest risks they face.
Some scientists fear that early consultations with forecast
users may unduly raise their expectations. It may take several
years for scientists to produce predictions with the necessary
detail and accuracy to be useful to a particular sector and, in the
meantime, users may lose confidence or interest in the process or
use unreliable information to make costly decisions. Explaining the
limitations and challenges of the predictive research may be
critical to maintaining user confidence. For example, it may be
impossible to predict a midseason dry spell or the date of a
significant frost. Explaining why the science is more uncertain
about certain topics than others and conveying uncertainty in terms
understandable to specific user groups can help recipients make
more appropriate use of available information and participate
constructively in forecast development. There is a lack of
systematic knowledge at this time concerning how to convey the
state of prediction science to particular types of forecast users
in a helpful way.
Findings
The limited research on responses to actual climate forecasts
and larger bodies of knowledge on information use generally and in
partially analogous situations have yielded some promising findings
and hypotheses, as well as developing a set of methods for
assessing the ways scientific information is used and the ways
information delivery systems function. 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.
1.
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. As Chapter 3 shows,
each weather-sensitive sector employs a variety of strategies for
coping with climatic variation, and each actor within a sector may
use only a subset of the available strategies. For
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climate forecasts to be useful in the near term, they must
present information that is relevant and timely in terms of the
coping strategies that recipients are likely to use. (In the longer
term, it may help to devise new coping strategies.) 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.
a.
Timing, lead time, and updating. When a forecast is made
can have great importance for decisions. One factor is whether or
not the forecast is available before key decisions must be made.
For example, crop yield forecasts are much more useful to farmers
if they are made before the crop is planted; storm and flood
forecasts are much more valuable if they are made before insurance
policy renewal dates. Another important factor is lead time. For
example, if it takes a certain number of weeks or months to get a
famine relief system functioning, forecasts will be much more
valuable if they provide at least that much lead time. Finally, the
usefulness of a forecast may depend on how frequently it is updated
and how well recipients understand the implications of updating,
because forecasts often improve in accuracy as time passes and
their implications for action may change. Obviously, the necessary
timing, lead time, and frequency of updating depend on the decision
that a forecast might affect.
b.
Climate parameters. Climate forecasts typically provide
estimates of average temperature or precipitation for a future
month or season. However, these are not always the most
decision-relevant parameters. Indian farmers want to know when the
monsoon will begin—an estimate climate forecasters may not be
able to provide—at least as much as they want to know the
total precipitation during the monsoon season. Public health
officials may want estimates of the average or lowest daily minimum
temperature for the breeding season of a disease vector that is
sensitive to that parameter. Citrus growers are also concerned with
the minimum temperature parameter. Number of days reaching above or
below a certain temperature may be a concern to public health and
safety officials who wish to prevent deaths from heat stress or
hypothermia in vulnerable populations. Some decision makers might
find it useful to have estimates of other parameters, such average
cloud cover, likelihood of storms producing rainfall greater than
certain levels, or length of growing season. The most important
climate parameters for decision making clearly depend on the
decision. Some decision makers may benefit greatly from estimates
of climate parameters that are not currently being offered but that
could be provided with skill if climate scientists made the effort
to do so.
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c.
Spatial and temporal resolution of the forecast. Climate
forecasts are typically offered for large regions, and this is
useful if the regional forecast is more or less equally accurate
throughout the region. However, this is not always the case. In the
United States, for example, a spatial resolution of several hundred
kilometers may be quite sufficient in the Great Plains but
inadequate in the Pacific Northwest because of the great climatic
variations within tens of kilometers in that region. For water
management purposes, it matters whether the spatial units of a
climate forecast lie within or across the boundaries of watersheds.
It may also make a difference whether a forecast provides annual,
seasonal, monthly, or daily averages and variances. Natural gas
suppliers may want averages for a whole heating season, whereas
fruit farmers may want averages for the period of a week or two
when pollination occurs.
d.
Accuracy of the forecast. For some decision purposes, a
forecast that provides any measurable skill beyond historical
averages may be quite valuable. This is likely to be the case for
decisions based on highly aggregate phenomena, such as those of
commodity market traders. For other decisions, a higher threshold
of accuracy may be required to make a forecast useful. This may be
the case for small farmers who may be unwilling to change their
past successful practices on the basis of a forecast of uncertain
or unproved accuracy. A higher threshold may also be set for actors
who are held to standards of practice by oversight bodies. An
example may be disaster insurers, whose regulatory authorities may
not allow them to readjust their rates on the basis of climate
forecasts until the forecasts have passed some test of
accuracy.
2.
Responses to past climate forecasts are an essential source
of information for understanding responses to future ones.
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. The
1997-1998 El Niño event provides a valuable opportunity for
building knowledge from experience that may be critical for
improving the use of future climate forecasts.
3.
Individual and organizational responses to climate forecasts
are likely to conform to known generalities about responses to
other kinds of new information. Thus, individuals' responses
are likely to be strongly affected by the cognitive frameworks and
beliefs to which they assimilate the new information.
Organizational responses are strongly affected by their preexisting
routines and the roles and responsibilities of those who would
receive and act on the information for the organization. General
knowledge about responses to new information suggest the following
hypotheses:
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•
People will understand information from ENSO-based forecasts and
use it more if they are first educated about the ENSO mechanism and
how it affects local climate.
•
Such learning will be best accomplished soon after extreme
climatic events, such as those associated with the 1997-1998 El
Niño.
•
Those who learn to use a mental model of ENSO may treat
ENSO-based forecasts as having more certainty attached to them than
the scientific evidence warrants.
•
Overconfident predictions and forecasts not borne out by actual
events are likely to have an especially strong influence on the
future use of forecast information. Forecasts presented without
mentioning uncertainty are likely to be interpreted as if the
forecasters have high confidence.
•
Because people often stop after making one appropriate response
to a situation, it may be useful to provide the users of climate
forecasts with checklists or other external aids that identify a
full complement of beneficial responses they could make.
4.
The effectiveness of new information depends strongly on the
systems that distribute the information (e.g., scientific
organizations, mass media), the channels of distribution (e.g.,
print or visual media, word of mouth), recipients' judgments about
the information sources, and the ways in which the informational
messages are presented. Knowledge about information delivery
systems and information use in situations that partly resemble the
situation of delivering climate forecasts suggests some working
hypotheses about how to improve delivery of this kind of
information.
a.
At the present stage of development of climate forecasting,
participatory strategies are likely to be most useful for designing
effective information systems. 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.
Although general principles have been stated for broad
participation in informing environmental decisions, the most
effective methods for each situation must be determined
empirically.
b.
When delivering climate forecast information requires the
involvement of new organizations or organizational roles, a period
of learning is likely to be required to achieve effective
information delivery. Learning is likely to be important both
within organizations and in terms of coordination of the parts of
the information delivery system.
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c.
General principles of persuasive communication can be applied
to climate forecast information within the bounds of audience
acceptance of deliberate influence. Among the principles likely
to make an important difference in this field include presenting
short and simple information, giving guidance on what to do to take
advantage of a forecast, informing people about lead time, using
frequent repetition over multiple channels, and getting information
to people from sources they use and trust. These principles are
likely to come increasingly into play as climate forecasts gain
credibility and produce information that is accepted as beneficial
to recipients and society.
d.
The usefulness of forecast information for a particular
recipient will depend on how it is presented. For example, the
same forecast information can be presented with or without
estimates of its level of uncertainty; the forecast means and
variances can be presented in words, numbers, or graphs; the
information can be distributed in one-way communication style, or
it can be discussed. The manner of presentation may make a
considerable difference in whether or not a climate forecast
changes the behavior of those who might benefit from it. Little is
known about the specifics for climate forecast information and
particular types of recipients.
e.
Useful information is likely to flow first to those with the
most education and money. This is likely to be particularly
true for highly technical information about future climate. For
such information to be used by less-educated and less-affluent
actors will probably require special efforts to process the
information to make it easier to know how to use it and to reach
these audiences through sources they trust, including their
personal social networks.
5.
Climate forecasts are likely to have different effects on
different regions, sectors, and actors; in particular, if the
typical strategies are used for delivering information, the
benefits of improved forecasts are likely to go disproportionately
to better-off individuals, groups, and societies. Differential
effects arise because particular items of forecast information
provide more value to some than to others; because the costs of
getting, interpreting, and acting on forecast information weigh
more heavily on those with fewest resources to pay them; because of
differential distribution of information typically, favoring the
educated, the literate, and members of dominant cultural groups;
and because of institutional and other factors that leave some
people able to benefit more than others from the information. Some
actors may benefit from forecasts at the expense of others. The
effects on any specific actor depend strongly on the coping
mechanisms available that allow the actor to take advantage of the
new information and on the cost of the information in money, time,
and effort to make it usable. Economic principles suggest that,
when a forecast has a fixed cost, it is more
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likely to be used by large actors because the benefit is likely
to be proportional to the magnitude of the decision that benefits
from the forecast. However, the actual cost threshold is likely to
vary also with the type of activity, with various attributes of the
forecast (accuracy, timeliness, etc.), and with the situations and
institutional contexts of affected actors.
In sum, climate forecasts are useful only in relation to the
actions people can take, given forecast information, to improve
their outcomes. Many factors specific to forecasts and to the
recipients' decision situations affect the potential usefulness of
forecast information. To improve the usefulness of climate
forecasts, it is important to identify the decision-relevant
attributes of forecast information for particular activities and
actors and to encourage forecasters to provide information with
those attributes when possible. It is also important to consider
what the recipients of climate forecasts are likely to do in
practice, given the coping strategies they actually use, their
ability to modify those strategies in response to forecast
information, the normal routines of their activities, their usual
practice in dealing with new information that is offered to them as
helpful, their level of trust in the forecast and its source, and
other realities of their situations. Available evidence suggests
that the benefits from improved information typically go
disproportionately to the wealthy and better educated. 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.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
forecast information