Weather: What's behind the gap in understanding of climate change?

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

One reason may be that research scientists are poor communicators, who talk in language that their peers may understand but the public does not

by HENRY HENGEVELD

At 8 pm on March 29, my wife and I lit a few candles, then turned off all the lights in our house. One by one, most of our neighbours did the same. Earth Hour 2008 had arrived! 
Shortly before nine, we stepped out onto our front steps to look at the stars, something we can't do most nights, since they are usually dimmed or invisible because of the city's excessive light pollution.

We were not alone. Close to 900,000 other Canadians and 150 municipalities had indicated intentions of observing Earth Hour. Around the world, another 100 million people were expected in join in.

Despite the significant participation in this first-ever international Earth Hour event, it had little impact on energy consumption or emissions of carbon dioxide. After all, the event only lasted an hour, and only dealt with lights. Thus, it briefly reduced electricity consumption across Ontario by only five per cent. However, Earth Hour was significant for another reason. It helped create public awareness about climate change. 

Given the polling data on Canadian awareness about climate change, we need that. Some 52 per cent of participants in a recent opinion poll indicated that they think the evidence for human-induced climate change is still subject to scientific debate. Only 38 per cent knew that greenhouse gases could cause climate change.

The numbers in the United States aren't much different. While 84 per cent of Americans polled agree that climate change is happening, only 47 per cent accept that this warming is primarily due to human causes. I suspect, as a recent letter from a reader reminded me, that the numbers for subscribers to Better Farming are not too different. 

Yet the most recent comprehensive assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, involving several thousand key scientific experts from around the world, notes that it is now certain that the world is warming, and that there is a 90 per cent probability that human emissions of greenhouse gases are the primary cause. Every major science academy around the world has indicated its agreement with these conclusions. 
This public misunderstanding of climate change suggests that the information from the science community is not getting through. One wonders why! 

A recent article by communications specialist Susan Hassol in the EOS Transactions, a weekly newsletter issued by American geophysicists with timely articles, news items, and other material of interest to the full range of Earth and space scientists, suggests that there are likely a number of factors.

First, the level of public understanding of how weather and climate behaves is not what it should be, a sad reflection of the level of related education at the elementary and secondary school level.

Secondly, the reporting of media outlets with respect to climate change often does not very well reflect the research results published by the science community. In particular, in the guise of "balanced" reporting, they often seek to give as much exposure to the arguments of the small number of skeptics as they do to the mainstream views of thousands of active researchers, without regard to the credibility or level of expertise of the source. This has helped create a public perception of "debate" within the science community that really does not exist.

Third, there is a concerted effort on the part of a number of vested interest parties (many linked to the fossil fuel sector) in spreading misinformation about climate change. Their specific intent is to sow doubt, and they employ communication consultants to help them do this.

However, Susan Hassol also puts a significant amount of the blame for the science-public information gap on climate scientists themselves. One reason why scientists are often poor public communicators, she notes, is that they have all been trained to present their results to fellow researchers for review and critique, but few have ever been taught to explain them to non-scientists. Hence, they use a lot of jargon and caveats that befuddles those unfamiliar with the science.

Furthermore, many terms used often may mean something different to the public than they do to the research community. For example, the term "error bars" is frequently used to show the confidence level in the data. Yet, to the non-scientist, the word error means a mistake or something that is wrong. 

Another is that researchers have spent years acquiring background knowledge that helps put their research results into context. The public has not. Therefore, when talking to non-scientists, researchers should be using analogies or metaphors which illustrate their results in terms that non-scientists can understand on the basis of their own personal life experiences.

For example, a climate scientist might say that "day-to-day weather relates to longer-term climate change, much like ocean waves washing up a shoreline relate to a rising tide. Just as the waves progressively reach further up the shore as the tide comes in, so warm days become more frequent and cold ones less so as the climate warms." 

After more than two decades of trying to communicate the complex science of weather and climate to non-scientists, I can't help but agree with Hassol's arguments. Perhaps its time that all researchers go back to school and learn how to better communicate to peers and interested lay audiences! BF

Henry Hengeveld is Emeritus Associate, Science Assessment and Integration Branch/ACSD/MSC, Environment Canada.