Uncertainty In Weather Extremes

This post is mainly based on personal thoughts and what I was able to gather from other sources about what I wanted to say about uncertainties in climate science and how it is treated. The title may be a bit off, sorry.

So one of the main problems with uncertainty that I realize throughout this course was misinterpretation. Most of the general public misunderstand what the uncertainty terms really mean. This almost always leads to interpersonal variabilities in the interpretation of the results presented [5]. If the world was made of only scientists, I believe, some form of action would have taken place against anthropogenic climate change by now. This is mainly because, most scientists or researchers can understand and better relate to these uncertainty terms. Thus, If people understood the terms used to communicate uncertainties better, they would have more confidence in the results and may lead to a positive action towards the subject matter [2]. But since this is not the case we see most people doubt climate research and kick back against climate action.

This problem is sometimes amplified by the media. For example, in the case of future trends of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, windstorms, tornadoes, droughts, floods, etc. while scientists are trying to find the correlations between global warming and these events, the media presents their findings as established truths [1]. As researchers try to find more about how higher average surface temperature may cause these events to be more or less destructive/frequent, there needs to be some truths about how the results are communicated. In an attempt to highlight the need for climate action, it is easy for the media to exaggerate the impacts of global warming on weather related disasters/natural hazards. I believe it is crucial as scientists to stick to the facts and be honest even if the results are not what is expected

Most of the general public are mostly concerned with direct impacts of climate change. They pay attention to those impacts that can hinder their personal lives directly, this is among the reasons why I think the media uses weather related disasters to create awareness. But, if they were also aware of how tiny organisms, like diatoms, dinoflagellates, etc., affects their lives, they may pay more attention to what happens to these tiny organisms as well. Creating awareness of the contributions of these tiny organisms that are sensitive and mostly affected by anthropogenic climate change may prompt climate action probably more than trying to jump the gun with weather related disasters. For example, if more people were aware that about half of the oxygen in the atmosphere came from phytoplankton, maybe, they would care more about their survival and may even cause them to go out of their way to save them, the same way they try to protect or insure their properties against natural hazards.

There is a clear reason why we need to worry about future climate extreme events escalating [3]. Given that, they can have devastating effects on both humans and ecosystems and wildlife [6].  And since future projections of sea level rise would aggravate the consequence of storms, hurricanes, floods, etc., if the frequencies and intensities remain the same [1]. But, there are a lot of uncertainties when it comes to isolating the effects of anthropogenic warming from other human-induced factors influencing climate extremes due to model limitations and the uncertainties inherent in scientific research [1]. As such, discussing these uncertainties with the public may help alleviate any misconceptions they may have about the uncertainties in climate change [4]. Also, there is the need to pay more attention to other indirect impacts of anthropogenic climate change.

REFERENCES

[1] Amendola, A., 2004. Management of change, disaster risk, and uncertainty: an overview. Journal of Natural Disaster Science, 26(2), pp.55-61.

[2] Carpenter, R.A. (1995) Communicating environmental science uncertainties, Environmental Professional 17, 127–36.

[3] Green, C., 2003. Change, risk and uncertainty: managing vulnerability to flooding. The 3rd IIASA-DPRI Forum.

[4] Johnson, B.B., 2003. Further notes on public response to uncertainty in risks and science. Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 23(4), pp.781-789.

[5] Malka, A., Krosnick, J.A. and Langer, G., 2009. The association of knowledge with concern about global warming: Trusted information sources shape public thinking. Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 29(5), pp.633-647

[6] Meehl, G.A., Karl, T., Easterling, D.R., Changnon, S., Pielke Jr, R., Changnon, D., Evans, J., Groisman, P.Y., Knutson, T.R., Kunkel, K.E. and Mearns, L.O., 2000. An introduction to trends in extreme weather and climate events: observations, socioeconomic impacts, terrestrial ecological impacts, and model projections. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 81(3), pp.413-416.