An outlook multiple: The ontological multiplicity of the Met Office's 3‐month outlook

Abstract

This paper uses a material semiotic approach to explore how the ontological multiplicity of climate affects the communication of seasonal climate outlooks (SCO). The analysis is based on an ethnography of the UK Meteorological Office's (Met Office) 3‐month outlook, which predicts seasonal climate variability for the whole of the UK over the next 3 months. I advance geographical knowledge by critiquing a tendency among SCO providers to assume that stakeholders only treat the climate as a descriptive index of weather trends. Instead, I propose that the idea of a normal climate, which is central to this mode of communication, is an effect of materially diverse professional practices, such as running seasonal climate models, making contingency plans, or writing and publishing newspaper articles. These socio‐material practices enact multiple understandings, or ontologies, of what the climate is, which then shape how SCO are understood and used. The analysis identifies moments where ontologies of climate converge and diverge and discusses the effect that these moments have on the communication of the Met Office's 3‐month outlook. The paper concludes by assessing the theoretical significance of material semiotic approaches for geographical research into the multiplicity of climate, as well as the practical significance of this work for scientists who are involved in communicating climate information.