Kenneth Broad

Misinterpretations of the "cone of uncertainty" in Florida during the 2004 hurricane season

This article reviews the evolution, communication, and differing interpretations of the National Hurricane Centers “cone of uncertainty” hurricane forecast graphic. It concludes with a discussion of this graphic from the perspective of risk communication theory. The 2004 hurricane season, in which five named storms struck Florida, demonstrated that hurricane forecast graphics, despite admirable attempts by the forecast community to make user-friendly products, are still subject to misinterpretation by many members of the public. This exploratory analysis draws upon interviews with key government officials and media figures, archival research of Florida newspapers, analysis of 962 public comments on the National Hurricane Centers cone of uncertainty graphic, a separate multiagency study of2004 hurricane behavior, and relevant risk communication literature, to identify several characteristics of this graphic that likely contribute to public misinterpretation. Forecast providers should consider more formal...

Integrating Climate Forecasts and Societal Decision Making: Challenges to an Emergent Boundary Organization:

The International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) was created in 1996 with an “end-to-end” mission to engage in climate research and modeling on a seasonal-to-interannual time scale and to provide the results of this research in a useful way to farmers, fishermen, public health officials, and others capable of making the best of the predicted climate conditions. As a boundary organization, IRI straddles the divides between the production and use of research and between the developed world and the developing world. This article describes the institutional history of IRI, examining how the end-to-end mission evolved over time, how it is becoming institutionalized in IRI as a boundary organization, and the ongoing challenges it presents to managing the boundary between climate variability research and societal applications.

Coral reef habitats as surrogates of species, ecological functions, and ecosystem services

Habitat maps are often the core spatially consistent data set on which marine reserve networks are designed, but their efficacy as surrogates for species richness and applicability to other conservation measures is poorly understood. Combining an analysis of field survey data, literature review, and expert assessment by a multidisciplinary working group, we examined the degree to which Caribbean coastal habitats provide useful planning information on 4 conservation measures: species richness, the ecological functions of fish species, ecosystem processes, and ecosystem services. Approximately one-quarter to one-third of benthic invertebrate species and fish species (disaggregated by life phase; hereafter fish species) occurred in a single habitat, and Montastraea-dominated forereefs consistently had the highest richness of all species, processes, and services. All 11 habitats were needed to represent all 277 fish species in the seascape, although reducing the conservation target to 95% of species approximately halved the number of habitats required to ensure representation. Species accumulation indices (SAIs) were used to compare the efficacy of surrogates and revealed that fish species were a more appropriate surrogate of benthic species (SAI = 71%) than benthic species were for fishes (SAI = 42%). Species of reef fishes were also distributed more widely across the seascape than invertebrates and therefore their use as a surrogate simultaneously included mangroves, sea grass, and coral reef habitats. Functional classes of fishes served as effective surrogates of fish and benthic species which, given their ease to survey, makes them a particularly useful measure for conservation planning. Ecosystem processes and services exhibited great redundancy among habitats and were ineffective as surrogates of species. Therefore, processes and services in this case were generally unsuitable for a complementarity-based approach to reserve design. In contrast, the representation of species or functional classes ensured inclusion of all processes and services in the reserve network.

Effective and Equitable Dissemination of Seasonal-to-Interannual Climate Forecasts: policy implications from the Peruvian fishery during El Niño 1997-98

The development of seasonal-to-interannual climate predictions has spurred widespread claims that the dissemination of such forecasts will yield benefits for society. Based on the use as well as non-use of forecasts in the Peruvian fishery during the 1997–98 El Niño event, weidentify: (1) potential constraints on the realization of benefits, such aslimited access to and understanding of information, and unintended reactions; (2) theneed for an appropriately detailed definition of societal benefit, considering whose welfare counts as a benefit among groups such as labor, industry, consumers, citizens of different regions, and future generations.We argue that consideration of who benefits, and an understanding of potential socioeconomic constraints and how they might be addressed, should be brought to bear on forecast dissemination choices. We conclude with examples of relevant dissemination choices made using this process.

Forecast Skill and Farmers' Skills: Seasonal Climate Forecasts and Agricultural Risk Management in the Southeastern United States

During the last 10 yr, research on seasonal climate forecasts as an agricultural risk management tool has pursued three directions: modeling potential impacts and responses, identifying opportunities and constraints, and analyzing risk communication aspects. Most of these approaches tend to frame seasonal climate forecasts as a discrete product with direct and linear effects. In contrast, the authors propose that agricultural management is a performative process, constituted by a combination of planning, experimentation, and improvisation and drawing on a mix of technical expertise, situated knowledge, cumulative experience, and intuitive skill as farmers navigate a myriad of risks in the pursuit of livelihood goals and economic opportunities. This study draws on ethnographic interviews conducted with 38 family farmers in southern Georgia, examining their livelihood goals and social values, strategies for managing risk, and interactions with weather and climate information, specifically their responses to seasonal climate forecasts. Findings highlight the social nature of information processing and risk management, indicating that both material conditions and valuebased attitudes bear upon the ways farmers may integrate climate predictions into their agricultural management practices. These insights translate into specific recommendations that will enhance the salience, credibility, and legitimacy of seasonal climate forecasts among farmers and will promote the incorporation of such information into a skillful performance in the face of climate uncertainty.

Exceptionally well preserved late Quaternary plant and vertebrate fossils from a blue hole on Abaco, The Bahamas

We report Quaternary vertebrate and plant fossils from Sawmill Sink, a “blue hole” (a water-filled sinkhole) on Great Abaco Island, The Bahamas. The fossils are well preserved because of deposition in anoxic salt water. Vertebrate fossils from peat on the talus cone are radiocarbon-dated from ≈4,200 to 1,000 cal BP (Late Holocene). The peat produced skeletons of two extinct species (tortoise Chelonoidis undescribed sp. and Caracara Caracara creightoni) and two extant species no longer in The Bahamas (Cuban crocodile, Crocodylus rhombifer; and Coopers or Gundlachs Hawk, Accipiter cooperii or Accipiter gundlachii). A different, inorganic bone deposit on a limestone ledge in Sawmill Sink is a Late Pleistocene owl roost that features lizards (one species), snakes (three species), birds (25 species), and bats (four species). The owl roost fauna includes Rallus undescribed sp. (extinct; the first Bahamian flightless rail) and four other locally extinct species of birds (Coopers/Gundlachs Hawk, A. cooperii/gundlachii; flicker Colaptes sp.; Cave Swallow, Petrochelidon fulva; and Eastern Meadowlark, Sturnella magna) and mammals (Bahamian hutia, Geocapromys ingrahami; and a bat, Myotis sp.). The exquisitely preserved fossils from Sawmill Sink suggest a grassy pineland as the dominant plant community on Abaco in the Late Pleistocene, with a heavier component of coppice (tropical dry evergreen forest) in the Late Holocene. Important in its own right, this information also will help biologists and government planners to develop conservation programs in The Bahamas that consider long-term ecological and cultural processes.

Dynamic Simulation as an Approach to Understanding Hurricane Risk Response: Insights from the Stormview Lab

This article investigates the use of dynamic laboratory simulations as a tool for studying decisions to prepare for hurricane threats. A prototype web-based simulation named Stormview is described that allows individuals to experience the approach of a hurricane in a computer-based environment. In Stormview participants can gather storm information through various media, hear the opinions of neighbors, and indicate intentions to take protective action. We illustrate how the ability to exert experimental control over the information viewed by participants can be used to provide insights into decision making that would be difficult to gain from field studies, such as how preparedness decisions are affected by the nature of news coverage of prior storms, how a storms movement is depicted in graphics, and the content of word-of-mouth communications. Data from an initial application involving a sample of Florida residents reveal a number of unexpected findings about hurricane risk response. Participants who viewed forecast graphics, which contained track lines depicting the most likely path of the storm, for example, had higher levels of preparation than those who saw graphics that showed only uncertainty cones-even among those living far from the predicted center path. Similarly, the participants who were most likely to express worry about an approaching storm and fastest to undertake preparatory action were those who, ironically, had never experienced one. Finally, external validity is evidenced by a close rank-order correspondence between patterns of information use revealed in the lab and that found in previous cross-sectional field studies.

Participatory processes and climate forecast use: Socio-cultural context, discussion, and consensus

Participatory processes are increasingly promoted by various groups as among the best approaches to increase efficiency, democracy and equity in decisions involving climate forecasts. Yet little is understood about the interaction between participation and its surrounding socio-cultural environment in the context of the dissemination and use of climate forecasts. This article draws on two case studies: water allocation choices in Brazil and agricultural decision making in Uganda. The focus is on two under-studied aspects of participatory processes: (1) the social norms of interactions that affect activity and outcomes through exclusion, pre-meetings, alliances, language and non-linguistic events; and (2) the diversity of goals and outcomes that motivate participation, including desire for consensus, social networking and community building. These norms and goals often result in behaviours and outcomes unanticipated by the promoters. We argue that the influence of socio-cultural context on the process is not only an unavoidable characteristic of participation, but also what makes it possible in the first place, bringing meaning and purpose to the activity for many participants.

Factors that Influence the Use of Climate Forecasts: Evidence from the 1997/98 El Niño Event in Peru

The promotion of the use of seasonal to interannual climate information by U.S. government and international agencies has increased the number of studies that address the use of forecasts. This work has largely been applications oriented. These studies seek to identify the current and potential patterns of forecast use, the integration of forecasts into decision making, and the most appropriate ways to communicate information to various groups.

The Dynamics of Hurricane Risk Perception: Real-Time Evidence from the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season

Findings are reported from two field studies that measured the evolution of coastal residents’ risk perceptions and preparation plans as two hurricanes — Isaac and Sandy — were approaching the United States coast during the 2012 hurricane season. The data suggest that residents threatened by such storms had a poor understanding of the threat posed by the storms; they over-estimated the likelihood that their homes would be subject to hurricane-force wind conditions, but under-estimated the potential damage that such winds could cause, and they misconstrued the greatest threat as coming from wind rather than water. These misperceptions translated into preparation actions that were not well commensurate with the nature and scale of the threat they faced, with residents being well prepared for a modest wind event of short duration but not for a significant wind-and-water catastrophe. Possible causes of the biases and policy implications for improving hurricane warning communication are discussed.