TY - JOUR

T1 - Visualizations of projected rainfall change in the United Kingdom

T2 - An interview study about user perceptions

AU - Kause, Astrid

AU - de Bruin, Wändi Bruine

AU - Fung, Fai

AU - Taylor, Andrea

AU - Lowe, Jason

N1 - This research was funded by M2D, the Models to Decision Network (grant number M2DPP 022) and the Met Office UK, Strategic Priorities Fund (grant number CR19-6a. Wändi Bruine de Bruin was supported by the Swedish Riskbankens Jubileumsfond’s program on “Science and Proven Experience” and the Center for Climate and Energy Decision Making (CEDM) through a cooperative agreement between the National Science Foundation and Carnegie Mellon University (SES-0949710 and SES-1463492).

PY - 2020/4/1

Y1 - 2020/4/1

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Climate change

KW - Climate hazards

KW - Risk communication

KW - Uncertainty

KW - Visualizations

KW - Sustainability sciences, Communication

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85083525853&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/su12072955

DO - 10.3390/su12072955

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85083525853

VL - 12

JO - Sustainability

JF - Sustainability

SN - 2071-1050

IS - 7

M1 - 2955

ER -