Communicating uncertainty in seasonal and interannual climate forecasts in Europe.
Communicating uncertainty in seasonal and interannual climate forecasts in Europe.
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DOI：
10.1098/rsta.2014.0454
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发表时间：
2015-11-28
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
de Bruin WB
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Taylor AL;Dessai S;de Bruin WB
在整个欧洲，不同部门的组织对从季节到年际到数十年的一系列时间尺度上的气候变异和变化都很敏感。气候预测提供者面临的挑战是，以透明、可理解且不会导致错误的确定感的方式，向这些决策者传达这些预测中固有的不确定性。本文报告了一项用户需求调查的结果，调查对象是来自欧洲各部门（如水资源管理、林业、能源、旅游、卫生）的50名对季节性和年际气候预测感兴趣的组织代表。我们发现，虽然许多参与组织进行自己的“内部”风险分析，大多数需要某种形式的处理和预测提供商的解释。然而，我们也发现，虽然用户往往认为季节性和年际预测是有用的，他们往往发现他们很难理解，强调需要适合专家和非专家用户的通信格式。此外，我们的研究结果表明，人们倾向于更喜欢熟悉的格式来接收有关不确定性的信息。这些研究结果的影响，气候信息的提供者和用户进行了讨论。
Across Europe, organizations in different sectors are sensitive to climate variability and change, at a range of temporal scales from the seasonal to the interannual to the multi-decadal. Climate forecast providers face the challenge of communicating the uncertainty inherent in these forecasts to these decision-makers in a way that is transparent, understandable and does not lead to a false sense of certainty. This article reports the findings of a user-needs survey, conducted with 50 representatives of organizations in Europe from a variety of sectors (e.g. water management, forestry, energy, tourism, health) interested in seasonal and interannual climate forecasts. We find that while many participating organizations perform their own ‘in house’ risk analysis most require some form of processing and interpretation by forecast providers. However, we also find that while users tend to perceive seasonal and interannual forecasts to be useful, they often find them difficult to understand, highlighting the need for communication formats suitable for both expert and non-expert users. In addition, our results show that people tend to prefer familiar formats for receiving information about uncertainty. The implications of these findings for both the providers and users of climate information are discussed.