Anthony Patt

Countering the Loading-Dock Approach to Linking Science and Decision Making Comparative Analysis of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Forecasting Systems

This article provides a comparative institutional analysis between El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forecasting systems in the Pacific and southern Africa with a focus on how scientific information is connected to the decision-making process. With billions of dollars in infrastructure and private property and human health and well-being at risk during ENSO events, forecasting systems have begun to be embraced by managers and firms at multiple levels. The study suggests that such systems need to consciously support the coproduction of knowledge. A critical component of such coproduction seems to be managing the boundaries between science and policy and across disciplines, scale, and knowledges to create information that is salient, credible, and legitimate to multiple audiences. This research suggests institutional mechanisms that appear to be useful in managing such boundaries, including mechanisms for structuring convening, translation, collaboration, and mediation functions.

Effective seasonal climate forecast applications: examining constraints for subsistence farmers in Zimbabwe

Abstract For the last decade, climate scientists have improved their skill at predicting seasonal rainfall patterns in many parts of the world based on observations of sea surface temperatures. Making forecasts useful to decision-makers, especially subsistence farmers in developing countries, remains a significant challenge. In this paper, we discuss a set of six constraints limiting the usefulness of forecasts: credibility, legitimacy, scale, cognitive capacity, procedural and institutional barriers, and available choices. We identify how these constraints have in fact limited forecast use so far, and propose means of overcoming them. We then discuss a pilot project in Zimbabwe, where we test our proposals. Drawing from two years’ observation, we offer lessons to guide future efforts at effective forecast communication.

Using Specific Language to Describe Risk and Probability

Good assessment of environmental issues, such as climate change, requires effective communication of the degree of uncertainty associated with numerous possible outcomes. One strategy that accomplishes this, while responding to peoples difficulty understanding numeric probability estimates, is the use of specific language to describe probability ranges. This is the strategy adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in their Third Assessment Report. There is a problem with this strategy, however, in that it uses words differently from the way lay readers of the assessment typically do. An experiment conducted with undergraduate science students confirms this. The IPCC strategy could result in miscommunication, leading readers to under-estimate the probability of high-magnitude possible outcomes.

Estimating least-developed countries' vulnerability to climate-related extreme events over the next 50 years.

When will least developed countries be most vulnerable to climate change, given the influence of projected socio-economic development? The question is important, not least because current levels of international assistance to support adaptation lag more than an order of magnitude below what analysts estimate to be needed, and scaling up support could take many years. In this paper, we examine this question using an empirically derived model of human losses to climate-related extreme events, as an indicator of vulnerability and the need for adaptation assistance. We develop a set of 50-year scenarios for these losses in one country, Mozambique, using high-resolution climate projections, and then extend the results to a sample of 23 least-developed countries. Our approach takes into account both potential changes in countries’ exposure to climatic extreme events, and socio-economic development trends that influence countries’ own adaptive capacities. Our results suggest that the effects of socio-economic development trends may begin to offset rising climate exposure in the second quarter of the century, and that it is in the period between now and then that vulnerability will rise most quickly. This implies an urgency to the need for international assistance to finance adaptation.

Action Bias and Environmental Decisions

Individuals have a penchant for action, often for good reasons. But action bias arises if that penchant is carried over to areas where those reasons do not apply, hence is nonrational. Action bias is explored theoretically, and then empirically, using data from surveys of hypothetical environmental decisions. Quite apart from agency considerations, individuals like to affect outcomes when gains are reaped. Given the ability to help one of two sites, we find that decision makers choose to foster improvement rather than prevent deterioration, despite framing that makes it arbitrary which site is improved, which preserved. Strong action bias—individuals choosing to reap gains even though they must impose losses—is also observed. These concepts are related to loss aversion, status quo bias, omission bias for losses, and bright-line behavior.

Understanding uncertainty: forecasting seasonal climate for farmers in Zimbabwe

Climatological and agricultural research has shown that El Nino cycles in the Pacific Ocean are a good predictor of maize yields in southern Africa, particularly Zimbabwe. However, forecasters can only offer probabilistic predictions, rather than saying with certainty whether Zimbabwe will experience wet or dry conditions. In an effort to avoid confusing farmers, extension service officers translate the forecast into deterministic terms. This approach conflicts with the literature in risk communication, which suggests that participatory discussions of the full forecast content is necessary to maintain credibility over time. But most of the research on which this literature is based has taken place in industrialized countries, and it is unclear whether the lessons apply as well in places like rural Zimbabwe. To test for this, an experiment was conducted with farmers in villages throughout Zimbabwe, in which they revealed their ability to make decisions under situations of uncertainty. The results are qualitatively similar to those of similar experiments conducted in industrialized countries. This suggests that improvements could be made to current forecast communication practices in Zimbabwe.

Knowledge and information needs of adaptation policy-makers: a European study

Across Europe, national governments have started to strategically plan adaptation to climate change. Making adaptation decisions is difficult in the light of uncertainties and the complexity of adaptation problems. Already large amounts of research results on climate impacts and adaptive measures are available, and more are produced and need to be mediated across the boundary between science and policy. Both researchers and policy-makers have started to intensify efforts to coproduce knowledge that is valuable to both communities, particularly in the context of climate change adaptation. In this paper, we present results from a study of adaptation governance and information needs, comparing eight European countries. We identify sources and means for the retrieval of information as well as gaps and problems with the knowledge provided by scientists and analyzed whether these appear to be contingent on the point in the policy-making cycle where countries are. We find that in this early phase of adaptation planning, the quality of the definition of needs, the way uncertainty is dealt with, and the quality of science–policy interaction are indeed contingent on the stage of adaptation planning, while information needs and sources are not. We conclude that a well-developed science–policy interface is of key importance for effective decision-making for adaptation.

Disaster warning response: the effects of different types of personal experience

In this paper, we seek to resolve the conflicting findings in literature about the effect of past hazard experience on response to warning. We find that different definitions of past experience in different studies are at the root of these conflicting findings. We disaggregate past experience into different types, identifying three types of past experiences that are most relevant in terms of affecting response. We test the relevance and importance of these three proposed types of past experience in an empirical context of warnings issued and response to these warning for two cyclonic events in India. We then provide the implications of the most relevant aspects of past hazard experience for emergency managers seeking to improve target audiences’ response to warning.

Cognition, caution, and credibility: the risks of climate forecast application

Weather and climate forecasters are now in the business of communicating seasonal climate forecasts to decision makers. While it seems clear that these forecasts carry a great many potential benefits, it also appears possible that conveying too much information about the forecasts could have the potential to harm people. Based on theories from behavioral economics, we argue that many people are likely to overestimate the potential dangers of forecasts, and to err on the side of communicating too little information. We support this argument with evidence gathered over the last three years in Zimbabwe, in a project designed to help subsistence farmers understand and use seasonal rainfall forecasts.

Regional integration to support full renewable power deployment for Europe by 2050

The European Union is currently working on a achieving a target of 20% renewable energy by 2020, and has a policy framework in place that relies primarily on individual Member States implementing their own policy instruments for renewable energy support, within a larger context of a tradable quota system. For 2050 the target is likely to be more stringent, given the goal of reducing European carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by then. Preliminary analysis has suggested that achieving the 2020 target through renewable power deployment will be far less expensive and far more reliable if a regional approach is taken, in order to balance intermittent supply, and to take advantage of high renewable potentials off the European mainland. Analysis based on modeling is combined with the results of stakeholder interviews to highlight the key options and governance challenges associated with developing such a regional approach.