Communication, Interpretation, And Use Of Information About Extreme Weather Risks
Communication, Interpretation, and Use of Information about Extreme Weather Risks: Hurricane Sandy and Beyond March 31, 2016 Columbia University, New York, NY Speaker: Rebecca E. Morss, National Center for Atmospheric Research This is the third seminar in the Initiative on Extreme Weather & Climate’s seminar series. Over the last few decades, advances in science and technology have enabled scientists to provide improved information about extreme weather risks on a variety of time scales. However, as Hurricane Sandy and other recent events have demonstrated, atmospheric scientists still face major challenges in effectively conveying extreme weather risk information to both professional and public audiences. At the same time, advances in information and communication technology are transforming how people access, combine, and share information. This presentation will discuss recent research to understand and improve extreme weather risk communication and decision making, with an emphasis on forecasts and warnings for approaching hurricanes and other hazardous weather events. Methods used include interviews and surveys with members of the public, analysis of social media data, and computational physical and social modeling. First, the speaker will present research examining how members of the at-risk public respond to different types of weather risk messages, including messages conveying potential weather impacts and predictive uncertainty. Next, she will discuss work investigating how and why different people respond to weather risks in different ways, including work with members of more vulnerable populations. Then, Morss will discuss ongoing research to understand how weather risk information and decisions evolve dynamically as a hazardous weather event approaches and arrives, in the context of the modern information environment. Together, this work aims to utilize a mix of approaches to build understanding of how information about potentially hazardous weather is communicated and used in its dynamic real-world context, in order to help meteorologists, public officials, and others improve communication of and responses to extreme weather risks.
