The Future of Humans in an Increasingly Automated Forecast Process

Stuart, Neil; Market, Patrick S.; Telfeyan, Bruce; Lackmann, Gary M.; Carey, Kenneth; Brooks, Harold E.; Nietfeld, Daniel; Motta, Brian; Reeves, Ken

doi:10.1175/bams-87-11-1497

Cited by 25 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 6 publications

(7 reference statements)

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“…In addition, all four sites use phrases (e.g., ''light rain possible'') in written text forecasts expressing uncertainty. Communication of forecast uncertainty is potentially of great value to society and to users of such forecasts and could enable more informed decision-making (National Research Council 2006;Stuart et al 2006;Hirschberg et al 2011). However, the methods by which laypeople evaluate the degree of certainty in a weather report, to our knowledge, is still not well understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Laypeople Evaluate the Degree of Certainty in a Weather Report? A Case Study of the Use of the Web Service yr.no

Sivle

Kolstø

Hansen

et al. 2014

Weather, Climate, and Society

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Many people depend on and use weather forecasts to plan their schedules. In so doing, ordinary people with no expertise in meteorology are frequently called upon to interpret uncertainty with respect to weather forecasts. With this in mind, this study addresses two main questions: 1) How do laypeople interpret online weather reports with respect to their degree of certainty and how is previous knowledge drawn upon in this interpretation? and 2) How do laypeople integrate information in weather reports to determine their degree of certainty? This qualitative study is based on semistructured interviews with 21 Norwegians. The results show the following: (a) only a portion of uncertainty information was used, (b) symbols were sometimes ascribed different meanings than intended, and (c) interpretations were affected by local experiences with wind direction and forecast quality. The informants' prior knowledge was found to prevail in the event of a conflict with forecast information, and an expected range of uncertainty was often inferred into single-valued forecasts. Additionally, (d) interpretations were affected by the integration of information used to predict the time and location of precipitation. Informants typically interpreted the degree of certainty differently (more or less uncertain) than was intended. Clearer presentation of uncertainty information, a clear intent of all nuances in information, a thorough use of multimodal information, and consideration of users' needs can help improve communication of forecast uncertainty. The diversity of user approaches makes forecast uncertainty more difficult to communicate and provides possible explanations for why communicating uncertainty is challenging.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Laypeople Evaluate the Degree of Certainty in a Weather Report? A Case Study of the Use of the Web Service yr.no

Sivle

Kolstø

Hansen

et al. 2014

Weather, Climate, and Society

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show abstract

“…Instead of the popular analogy of the forecaster as a fire fighter (responding only as a critical situation arises) or as an airline pilot [intervening only at critical times, such as takeoff, landing, or during computer failure, as discussed in Stuart et al (2006)], an alternative analogy of the forecaster as a professional athlete (a hockey player was specifically mentioned) emerged at the forums. The firefighter, the airline pilot, and the hockey player each work as part of a team and require frequent training and practice.…”

Section: Future Role Of the Human Fore-castermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is often stated that it is becoming increasingly difficult for human forecasters to add value to NWP forecasts, especially beyond the first 12 h or so, since only occasionally is NWP guidance seriously in error (e.g., Stuart et al 2006;Baars and Mass 2005;Mass 2003;Brooks et al 1996;Roebber and Bosart 1996). However, it is at precisely those times when NWP does poorly that the weather is typically of critical importance to the public-that is, in significant HIW situations.…”

Section: Future Role Of the Human Fore-castermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the United States, these include a session at the First American Meteorological Society (AMS) Conference on Artificial Intelligence in 1998 and the AMS "Future Role of the Human in the Forecast Process" interactive forums in 2004 and 2005 (see Stuart et al 2006Stuart et al , 2007a. A session was also held on the role of the forecaster and production tools at the 2006 European Working Group on Operational Workstations (EGOWS) meeting (see www.met.hu/pages/egows2006).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A session was also held on the role of the forecaster and production tools at the 2006 European Working Group on Operational Workstations (EGOWS) meeting (see www.met.hu/pages/egows2006). In addition, many papers during the past several decades have discussed the role of the human forecaster, including Novak et al (2008), Stuart et al (2007a,b), Stuart et al (2006), Baars and Mass (2005), Doswell (2004), Roebber et al (2004), Bosart (2003), Mass (2003), Andra et al (2002), Roebber et al (2002), Roebber and Bosart (1996), Doswell, (1986), and Snellman (1977.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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On The MSC Forecasters Forums and the Future Role of the Human Forecaster

Sills¹

2009

Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc.

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Weather forecast skill comparisons at a location in the Midwest United States

Athar

Sara

2013

Meteorological Applications

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This paper presents the results of a forecast skill score comparison for the popular two semester weather forecast game played at University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, United States, for a total of 106 days, during the autumn 2006 and winter 2007 semesters. A relatively less experienced/first time student forecaster (SF) skill, based upon the funnel approach to weather forecasting, is compared with the then state-of-the-art mesoscale operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) model outputs and the observations. Several measures of the forecast skills are employed to illustrate the intercomparison of the different aspects of performance of the game players for a conventional forecast game setup in an educational environment, after paying particular attention to the associated sampling uncertainty in the analysis of the forecast game. Bootstrap resampling based confidence intervals are computed and compared for the SF and NWP model forecasts and the observations to quantify the relative accuracies of the forecasts. The SF performed quite comparable to the NWP models, and better than the climatology and the persistence, for the next-day forecasts of temperature and precipitation, when the forecast skill scores of the game players were averaged over the period of the forecast game. These observations support the judgement that the contribution of human forecasters, even in the contemporary era of progressively improving and fully automated NWP model outputs, remained a crucial one.

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The Future of Humans in an Increasingly Automated Forecast Process

Cited by 25 publications

References 6 publications

How Do Laypeople Evaluate the Degree of Certainty in a Weather Report? A Case Study of the Use of the Web Service yr.no

How Do Laypeople Evaluate the Degree of Certainty in a Weather Report? A Case Study of the Use of the Web Service yr.no

On The MSC Forecasters Forums and the Future Role of the Human Forecaster

Weather forecast skill comparisons at a location in the Midwest United States

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