The unseen uncertainties in climate change: reviewing comprehension of an IPCC scenario graph

McMahon, Rosemarie; Stauffacher, Michael; Knutti, Reto

doi:10.1007/s10584-015-1473-4

Cited by 58 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Graphical and tabular summaries have shown promise for communicating health policy summaries (e.g., Glenton et al, 2010) and climate change summaries (e.g., McMahon et al, 2015). When used properly, icons make it easier for people to find and understand the information they want (Gatsou et al, 2012).…”

Section: High-quality Summariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicating evidence for policy makers in icons and tables- What works? preprint

Brick¹,

Freeman²

2019

Preprint

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Policy decisions have vast consequences, but there is little empirical research on how best to communicate underlying evidence to decision makers. Groups in diverse fields (e.g., education, medicine, crime) use brief, graphical displays to list policy options, expected outcomes, and evidence quality, to make such evidence easy to assess. However, understanding of these representations is rarely studied. We surveyed experts and non-experts on what information they want and tested their objective comprehension of commonly used graphics. 252 UK residents from Prolific and 452 UK What Works Centre users interpreted the meaning of graphics shown without labels. Comprehension was low (often below 50 per cent). The best-performing graphics used unambiguous, relevant shapes, color cues, and indications of quantity. The participants also reported what types of evidence they wanted and in what detail (e.g., subgroups; different outcomes). Intervention effectiveness and quality were universally paramount, and policy makers also wanted to know the financial costs and other negative consequences. Comprehension and preferences were remarkably consistent between the samples. Groups communicating evidence about policy options can use these results to design summaries, toolkits, and reports for expert and non-expert audiences.

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Section: High-quality Summariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicating evidence for policy makers in icons and tables- What works? preprint

Brick¹,

Freeman²

2019

Preprint

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“…But, within the field of climate change, framing of different uncertainty sources affected risk perception . Another study found different sources of climate change uncertainty not to be necessarily self‐explanatory to the lay public . People are generally interested in learning about the unknowns .…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicating Low‐Probability High‐Consequence Risk, Uncertainty and Expert Confidence: Induced Seismicity of Deep Geothermal Energy and Shale Gas

2017

Self Cite

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Subsurface energy activities entail the risk of induced seismicity including low-probability high-consequence (LPHC) events. For designing respective risk communication, the scientific literature lacks empirical evidence of how the public reacts to different written risk communication formats about such LPHC events and to related uncertainty or expert confidence. This study presents findings from an online experiment (N = 590) that empirically tested the public's responses to risk communication about induced seismicity and to different technology frames, namely deep geothermal energy (DGE) and shale gas (between-subject design). Three incrementally different formats of written risk communication were tested: (i) qualitative, (ii) qualitative and quantitative, and (iii) qualitative and quantitative with risk comparison. Respondents found the latter two the easiest to understand, the most exact, and liked them the most. Adding uncertainty and expert confidence statements made the risk communication less clear, less easy to understand and increased concern. Above all, the technology for which risks are communicated and its acceptance mattered strongly: respondents in the shale gas condition found the identical risk communication less trustworthy and more concerning than in the DGE conditions. They also liked the risk communication overall less. For practitioners in DGE or shale gas projects, the study shows that the public would appreciate efforts in describing LPHC risks with numbers and optionally risk comparisons. However, there seems to be a trade-off between aiming for transparency by disclosing uncertainty and limited expert confidence, and thereby decreasing clarity and increasing concern in the view of the public.

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“…Finally, uncertain climate communications use a much wider range of visualization formats than those studied here, such as various maps, line graphs, boxplots, infographics, or roulette wheels, just to name a few [9,10,50]. These need to be tested with target audiences [51].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visualizations of Projected Rainfall Change in the United Kingdom: An Interview Study about User Perceptions

Kause

Bruin²,

Fung

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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Stakeholders from public, private, and third sectors need to adapt to a changing climate. Communications about climate may be challenging, especially for audiences with limited climate expertise. Here, we study how such audience members perceive visualizations about projected future rainfall. In semi-structured interviews, we presented 24 participants from climate-conscious organizations across the UK with three prototypical visualizations about projected future rainfall, adopted from the probabilistic United Kingdom Climate Projections: (1) Maps displaying a central estimate and confidence intervals, (2) a line graph and boxplots displaying change over time and associated confidence intervals, and (3) a probability density function for distributions of rainfall change. We analyzed participants' responses using "Thematic Analysis". In our analysis, we identified features that facilitated understanding-such as colors, simple captions, and comparisons between different emission scenarios-and barriers that hindered understanding, such as unfamiliar acronyms and terminology, confusing usage of probabilistic estimates, and expressions of relative change in percentages. We integrate these findings with the interdisciplinary risk communication literature and suggest content-related and editorial strategies for effectively designing visualizations about uncertain climate projections for audiences with limited climate expertise. These strategies will help organizations such as National Met Services to effectively communicate about a changing climate.Sustainability 2020, 12, 2955 2 of 21 probabilistic climate projections about how the UK climate is expected to change over the course of the current century for the UK Climate Projections 2009 (UKCP09) and 2018 (UKCP18) platform [7,8]. These climate projections are simulations of how, for example, precipitation or temperatures might change in response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, as well as how likely those changes are.However, climate projections may be challenging for stakeholders from public, private, and third-sector organizations and members of the general public [2,4,[9][10][11]. One potential difficulty in communicating climate projections is their inherent uncertainty [12]. This uncertainty arises from different sources, including natural variability in climate data resulting in imprecision, and uncertainty about how future human activities will impact on the climate, represented through different emission scenarios, or model uncertainty [13][14][15][16][17][18]. Thus, audiences' interpretations of climate projections and associated uncertainties may differ from what climate experts aim to communicate [19,20]. In addition, presenting uncertainty in climate information may delay public action on climate change [21], promote a "wait-and-see" approach [22], or increase public polarization about climate change [23]. This calls for communication formats that allow stakeholders to make adequate adaptation decisions and to integ...

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The unseen uncertainties in climate change: reviewing comprehension of an IPCC scenario graph

Cited by 58 publications

References 30 publications

Communicating evidence for policy makers in icons and tables- What works? preprint

Communicating evidence for policy makers in icons and tables- What works? preprint

Communicating Low‐Probability High‐Consequence Risk, Uncertainty and Expert Confidence: Induced Seismicity of Deep Geothermal Energy and Shale Gas

Visualizations of Projected Rainfall Change in the United Kingdom: An Interview Study about User Perceptions

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