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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Weather and Society: Toward Integrated Approaches provides the first interdisciplinary approach to the subject of weather and society. This guide to the evolving set of problem-solving approaches to weather’s societal issues successfully integrates social science’s techniques, concepts and methodologies into meteorological research and practice. Drawing especially on the work of the WAS*IS workshops (Weather and Society * Integrated Studies), this important reference offers a framework for starting to understand how the consideration of societal impacts can enhance the scientific disciplines that address the scope and impacts of weather, particularly meteorology. Filled with tools, concepts, case studies and helpful exercises, this resource:
- Lays the groundwork for conducting interdisciplinary work by learning new strategies and addressing typical challenges
- Identifies leaders of the movement to integrate social science and meteorology and highlights their contributions
- Includes discussion of such tools as Geographic Information Systems, survey design, focus groups, participatory research and interviewing techniques and concepts
- Reveals effective integrated research and applications though real-world examples in a global context
- Helps to identify ways to pursue research, application, and educational opportunities for integrated weather-society work
Weather and Society is a hands-on guide for academics, students and professionals that offers a new approach to the successful integration of social science concepts and methodologies into the fabric of meteorological research and practice.
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Seitenzahl: 344
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Acknowledgments
References
Preface
1 The Need for Integrated Approaches to Weather and Society
1.1 Rationale for This Book
1.2 The Audience for This Book
1.3 Defining Weather and Society: Integrated Approaches
1.4 What Social Sciences Have in Common with Each Other and with Atmospheric Science?
1.5 Social Science Methodologies
1.6 What Is Not Social Science?
1.7 Doing Social Science Versus Incorporating Societal Impacts
1.8 Questions for Review and Discussion
1.9 Using What You’ve Learned: Homework Assignment From the Chapter
References
2 History of the Movement to Integrate Social Science Into Atmospheric Science
2.1 Early Weather Forecasting for Impacts
2.2 Historians and Weather
2.3 Weather and Society Efforts Build on Natural Hazards Research and Practice
2.4 Physical Science Myths Related to Climate and Applicable to Weather
2.5 Meteorological Aspects of Non‐Meteorological Hazards
2.6 Research That Evaluates What People Did When They Heard a Warning: Hurricane Ike 2008 Case Study
2.7 Questions for Review and Discussion
2.8 Using What You’ve Learned: Homework Assignment From the Chapter
References
3 Social Science Partners and the Weather/Society Work They Do
3.1 The Partners and How They Do Their Work
3.2 Anthropology
3.3 Communication
3.4 Economics
3.5 Geography
3.6 Psychology
3.7 Sociology
3.8 Questions for Review and Discussion
3.9 Using What You’ve Learned: Homework Assignment From the Chapter
References
4 Thirteen Profiles of Leaders in Weather and Social Science
4.1 Angle’s Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.2 Dr. Becker’s Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.3 Dr. Demuth’s Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.4 Dobson’s Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.5 Fransen’s Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.6 Holthaus’ Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.7 Dr. Lazrus’ Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.8 Dr. Morss’ Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.9 Moulton's Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.10 Dr. Ruin’s Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.11 Dr. Schumacher’s Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.12 Spinney’s Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.13 Vitols’ Recommendations for Integrating Social Science and Atmospheric Science
4.14 Questions for Review and Discussion
4.15 Using What You’ve Learned: Homework Assignment From the Chapter
References
5 Moving Toward Integrated Weather and Society Research and Practice—A New Paradigm
5.1 How Social Scientists and Meteorologists Work Together to Create New Scientific Conceptual Models and Methods: Start with Adjacent Projects
5.2 Increased Popularity for How Important It Is for Meteorologists to Understand Some Social Science
5.3 Possible New Common Ground for Integrated Approaches to Weather and Society: Emergence of Convergence Science
5.4 Socio‐Meteorological Testbeds
5.5 Wicked Problems and Momentum In the Movement Toward Integrated Weather‐Society Science
5.6 Hard or Soft Science? Evening the Playground Between the Sciences
5.7 Human Machine Interface
5.8 Questions for Review and Discussion
5.9 Using What You’ve Learned: Homework Assignment From the Chapter
References
6 Ways to Be Part of the Transformation to Integrated Weather Studies
6.1 Be Part of the Move From WAS to IS
6.2 Understand the Cycle of Change
6.3 Keep the Momentum Going Toward the Integration of Social and Atmospheric Science
6.4 Build Durable Partnerships—Recognize the Power of Networking
6.5 Support May Come From Surprising Sources
6.6 Five Key Research Priorities for New Hybrid Weather Society Researchers and Practitioners
6.7 How Science Changes
6.8 Socio‐Hydrology Emerges
6.9 New Integrated Disciplines on the Horizon
6.10 Changing the Paradigm Takes Time and Will Require Patience
6.11 Hybrids By Design—Socio‐Hydro‐Meteorology
6.12 How to Become a Participant in the Movement to Integrate the Social Sciences and Atmospheric Science
6.13 The Challenges Are Not Overwhelming
6.14 Meteorologists Embracing Social Science Is a First Step
6.15 Work for the Longer Term
6.16 Questions for Review and Discussion
6.17 Using What You’ve Learned: Homework Assignment From the Chapter
References
Appendix A: List of Acronyms
Appendix B: Blogs and Websites that Integrate Weather and Society
Appendix C: Other Relevant Web Resources
Addendum
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 01
Figure 1.1 The major groups that are concerned about weather and society. It provides a basic diagram of the weather community. It is meant to include everyone who is concerned about the weather, from those who design tools to forecast the weather, to those who do the forecasting, to those whose daily professional and personal lives depend on the weather forecasts and weather impacts. Partners in integrated weather and society work are all connected and have different spatial and temporal information needs.
Figure 1.2 Scientist’s typical view of research and development to produce useful information for society—top‐down “end‐to‐end” research illustrated for the case of flood risk management. The connection from decision maker to research (shown by dashed line) is mentioned in some implementations of end‐to‐end research, but in others, it is left implied or assumed.
Figure 1.3 A more integrated approach where all the stakeholders are included in the process and the process has no top or bottom. This iterative process is slowly taking hold as meteorologists recognize the value of developing new tools or conducting research with stakeholder preferences or concerns in mind.
Figure 1.4 Like meteorology, the various social sciences rely on the scientific method and use many different methods for their research.
Chapter 02
Figure 2.1 Button for WAS * IS (Weather and Society * Integrated Studies).
Figure 2.2 Professor Diana Liverman.
Chapter 03
Figure 3.1 Key social science disciplines that address the problems at the intersection of weather and society.
Figure 3.2 Social scientists from these disciplines solve weather impact problems for a range of decision‐makers from individuals to emergency managers, and they work with other researchers and practitioners from the private and public sectors.
Figure 3.3 Examples of questions that social scientists ask at the intersection of weather and society.
Figure 3.4 Integrating local and scientific weather knowledge as a strategy for adaptation to climate change in the Arctic.
Figure 3.5 Hydrological, meteorological, and sociological data from one flood. Integrating the datasets to understand a flood in terms of the where and when of stream response, people’s behavior, and precipitation patterns has great potential for increasing understanding of what happens during floods as part of research aimed at mitigating their impact.
Figure 3.6 All of these systems interact in time and space to affect warnings for flash floods and responses to those warnings.
Figure 3.7 Conceptual model of dynamic social vulnerability to flash flood events
Figure 3.8 Nassau County hurricane evacuation map ‐
Figure 3.9 The National Weather Services created a prototype using Tampa‐St. Petersburg, Florida for its new storm surge forecasting map using data collected when Hurricane Charlie struck Punta Gorda in 2004. http://www.tbrpc.org/tampabaydisaster/hurricane_guide2012/HG_2012.html
Figure 3.10 Cumulative distribution of evacuation preparation times.
Figure 3.11 Example of a probabilistic forecast in cone format from the National Hurricane Center for Hurricane Irene in 2001. A graphic like this one is one of the sources of information that households use to make an evacuation decision.
Figure 3.12 Dr. Lori Peek conducting fieldwork in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Figure 3.13 Dr. Alice Fothergill and Dr. Lori Peek doing participatory research in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Chapter 04
Figure 4.1 Kelsey Angle.
Figure 4.2 Julia Becker.
Figure 4.3 Julie Demuth.
Figure 4.4 Greg Dobson.
Figure 4.5 Tanja Fransen.
Figure 4.6 Eric Holthaus.
Figure 4.7 Heather Lazrus.
Figure 4.8 Rebecca Morss.
Figure 4.9 Rebecca Moulton.
Figure 4.10 Isabelle Ruin.
Figure 4.11 Russ Schumacher.
Figure 4.12 Jennifer Spinney.
Figure 4.13 Lisa Vitols.
Chapter 05
Figure 5.1 Dr. Marshall Shepherd, Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Georgia.
Figure 5.2 Dr. Marshall Shepherd on the set of his Sunday afternoon show Weather Geeks (WxGeeks) interviewing Dr. Kim Klockow and Dr. Susan Jasko at the American Meteorological Society Meeting in Phoenix, January 2015.
Figure 5.3 Adapted from the model of how science changes from disparate silos to adjacent or integrated entities to completely new kinds of science that then spin off new ways of understanding and completely new types of science. Roco termed the phases: creative, integration, and innovation.
Chapter 06
Figure 6.1 Maurer 2009, adapted from Maurer 1996.
Figure 6.2 Venn diagram showing perspectives on the integration of meteorology and social science.
Figure 6.3 Questions social scientists from many disciplines might ask about individual human behavior in severe weather.
Figure 6.4 Timeline for activities that formally try to integrate social science into atmospheric science.
Figure 6.5 U.S. Drought Monitor conditions as of April 19, 2016, released April 21, 2016 (http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/home/regionaldroughtmonitor.aspx?west). Showing how much of the western United States remains in extreme drought.
Guide
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Weather and Society
Toward Integrated Approaches
Eve Gruntfest
This edition first published 2018© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Acknowledgments
This book began as an effort to support and amplify two ambitious efforts that were passionately dedicated to changing the way that the social sciences and atmospheric sciences collaborate to improve weather forecasting effectiveness, reduce the number of lives lost to severe weather, and to develop a cadre of hybrid socio‐meteorologists. The two main efforts toward these goals were the WAS*IS movement (Weather and Society * Integrated Studies) and the SSWIM or Social Science Woven into Meteorology program. When funding for both of these programs ended and I faced the prospect that this textbook would need to be historical and not totally optimistic, progress on this book slowed. The book retains a cautiously optimistic tone even though a close examination in 2017 reveals that atmospheric scientists, without a clear understanding of or appreciation for social science, are doing most of the talking at the intersection of weather and society and there are only a handful of examples of woven collaborations between atmospheric scientists and social scientists.
My graduate school mentor and advisor, Dr. Gilbert F. White, inspired me. Gilbert’s brilliance had powerful policy implications for natural hazard mitigation at the local, state, federal, and international levels, and his tireless persistent dedication to bringing all stakeholders, researchers, and students together for decision making kept me focused on getting this book finished. I began my career studying the behavior of people during the 1976 Big Thompson flood in Colorado (Gruntfest, 1977) and the flash flood research led to a broader passion for understanding flash floods and warnings nationally and internationally (Gruntfest and Handmer, 2001). Forty years later, I am still highly motivated and engaged with ways to improve flash flood warnings.
Completing this book required lots of help. I appreciate the feedback and support throughout my career and in the creation of this book of Sandrine Anquetin, Rachael Ballard, Chip Benight, Julia Becker, Eric Beteille, Enrica Caporali, Francesca Carli, Kim Carsell, Julie Demuth, Gina Eosco, Micky Glantz, Neil Gordon, John Handmer, Mary Hayden, Bob Henson, Stephanie Hoekstra, Bill Hooke, David Johnston, Ilan Kelman, Matt Kelsch, Kim Klockow, Emily Laidlaw, Linda Layne, Heather Lazrus, Cedar League, Diana Liverman, Celine Lutoff, Brenda Mackie, Vinodhini Mathiyalagan, Beth Mitchneck, Burrell Montz, Rebecca Morss, Ellen Nelson, Amy Nichols, Lori Peek, Brenda Philips, Andrea Ray, Valerie Ritterbusch, Paola Salio, Celeste Saulo, Lucy Sayer, Fiona Seymour, Andrea Schumacher, Russ Schumacher, Hatim Sharif, Marshall Shepherd, Bill Siembieda, Priya Subbrayal, Bella Talbot and Molly Wingate. My dearest friends, Sarah Christensen, Fanette Pollack, Andrea Herrera, Karen Breunig Hine, Claire Sheridan, and Marc Weber, relentlessly encouraged me to finish this project.
The book is dedicated to the formal and informal WAS*ISers who continue to attempt to weave social science into the fabric of the weather enterprise. I hope this book provides a jumping off point for additions and modifications by new brave generation of scholars, practitioners and charismatic policy entrepreneurs including Simone Balog, Kenny Blumenfeld, Dereka Carroll‐Smith, Julia Chasco, Renee Curry, Greg Dobson, Tanja Fransen, Jen Henderson, Eric Holthaus, Rebecca Jennings, Aisha Owusu, Amber Silver Nelson, Daniel Nietfeld, Justin Nobel, Vahid Rahmani, Isabelle Ruin, Jason Samenow, Jen Spinney, Galetia Terti, Chris Uejio, and Charlie Woodrum. These scholars and others are tirelessly leading efforts to integrate social science into atmospheric science, despite limited formal credit for this work from their employers or advisors.
References
Gruntfest, E (1977)
What People Did During the Big Thompson Flood
Working Paper 32 Institute of Behavioral Science University of Colorado
http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/publications/wp/wp32.pdf
Gruntfest, E and J Handmer (eds) (2001)
Coping With Flash Floods
Kluwer
Preface
This textbook is the culmination of four decades of collaborations to meet the challenges of natural hazard mitigation. My own contributions came from the social science and societal impacts perspectives. I hope the publication of this book formally marks the end of the era of social science as merely an “add‐on” to meteorology.
Until 2005, my expectations for genuine integration of social science into meteorological research and practice were low. I was content to know that at least the words "social science" or "societal impacts" were being considered. I was pleased to be invited to workshops, conferences, short courses, and meetings to be a social conscience. When the presentations went over well, I would be invited back for a similar presentation the following year. Meteorologists would agree that someone should do the social science related to meteorology but no one in particular was volunteering.
I gave dozens of invited talks all over the world. The talks were usually scheduled at the end of a session or a course. While societal impacts and the “so what” part of forecasting and new technologies were acknowledged, the commitment to addressing more than the physical science and engineering was superficial. There was no funding or actual integration of social scientists on research teams. My presentations were not an integrated part of larger research and practice for the physical scientists and engineers in the classes. I always happily fulfilled my role as an add‐on social scientist to whatever was the main course, workshop, or conference topic. An egregious example was when I was invited to Germany to provide societal impacts dimensions to the 10‐year Mescoscale Alpine Programme (http://www.map.meteoswiss.ch/). Only after a decade of research did the team invite in a few social scientists to provide the “so what” part of the massive experiment. Looking back on my career, preparing to retire from my position as a geography professor, I recognized that, as an add‐on social scientist, my work had not made changes in how atmosphere science was being conducted.
Now my expectations for the integration of atmospheric science and the social sciences are higher. The roots of WAS *IS and this textbook can be traced to visiting scientist opportunities I had to work with atmospheric science teams at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado in the 1990s and early 2000s. I picked up some of their language and concerns of atmospheric scientists that led to grant writing collaborations. In 2012 and 2013, I was invited to serve as a program officer at the National Science Foundation in the Atmospheric and Geospace Division of the Geosciences Directorate. That appointment is one demonstrable piece of evidence among many that there has been movement for the atmospheric sciences to formally appreciate what a social scientist can offer.
So it is with this renewed encouragement that this book lays some groundwork for further integration of social science with atmospheric science. This is just a beginning. Once these two kinds of scientists learn to truly work together, then the real business can begin of more accurately and effectively explaining weather events so that people can respond appropriately and in time.
1The Need for Integrated Approaches to Weather and Society
1.1 Rationale for This Book
What do you do when you see a weather alert—SEVERE WEATHER EXPECTED? If you are a driver or a passenger in a car, do you pay any attention? Do you change your behavior or do you keep moving forward without any change in your plans? Does your answer depend on where you are heading or how pressing your obligations are? If the alert specifically mentioned icy conditions ahead or wet roadways, would that information be more useful? Would you seek additional weather information? If so, where would you get that information?
Every day and everywhere, people talk about and deal with the weather. They consider the forecasts and the potential weather impacts. The discussions and actions are often place‐specific and revolve around what is normal or abnormal for a particular place or region. Conversations about weather range from appreciation of the mild conditions that foster the enjoyment of outside activities to awe and sadness about catastrophic impacts of tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, and floods. But the question of how to best educate and inform people about weather impacts remains. Some recent weather books for a more general audience that take on this challenge include The Weather Machine by Andrew Blum (2017), Thunder and Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future by Lauren Redniss (2015), The Weather of the Future Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate‐Changed Planet by Dr. Heidi Cullen (2010), and Weather on the Air: A History of Broadcast Meteorology by Robert Henson (2010b).
“Extreme weather is costly. From 2008 to 2013, alone, the price tag of extreme weather events in the U.S was $309 billion. These costs are soaring even as forecasts improve” (Samenow, 2015a,b). Perhaps the most impressive gains in accurately predicting severe weather have been in hurricane forecasting. In the 1980s when the National Hurricane Center tried to predict where a hurricane would hit three days in advance of landfall, it missed by an average of 350 miles. If Hurricane Isaac, which made its unpredictable path through the Gulf of Mexico in August 2012, had occurred in the late 1980s, the center might have projected landfall anywhere from Houston to Tallahassee, canceling thousands of business deals, flights and picnics in between—and damaging the reputation of the National Hurricane Center when the hurricane zeroed in hundreds of miles away. By 2012 the average miss was only about 100 miles (Silver, 2012).
However, even with more accurate predictions, there are severe events that seem to surprise people. More than two feet of rain caused extreme flooding of Baton Rouge, LA in August 2016. The flood killed 13 people, displaced tens of thousands of others, caused an estimated $8.7 billion in damage and destroyed 60,000 houses. More than 73,000 households across 20 parishes were approved for Federal Emergency Management Agency aid for the flooding that is considered to have 1000‐year recurrence interval. Linking this extreme event and others to human caused climate change is a lively discussion (Ball, 2016; Mooney, 2016). Should these extreme floods have “names” to help forecasters inform the public about their unusual severity (Shepherd, 2016a; Schroeder et al., 2016)?
Some people have an intense interest in weather details. People who are planning an outside wedding on a particular June day, or who are planning a winter vacation to Florida, or, who are farmers worried how “hard” a predicted freeze will be and its potential impact on their orange groves are particularly weather‐aware. Many, but not all, people have a serious, deep interest in weather and meteorological phenomena and they pay close attention to forecasts, warnings, and their own experience.
People use official forecasts from meteorologists, observations from weather stations, and many personal idiosyncratic ways to predict and understand the weather and weather forecasts. Many people rely on environmental cues to tell them whether a storm is coming or if the rainstorm will produce flooding. Some rely on sophisticated scientific and technological tools. Others rely on a combination of sources including low and high technology data.
Some people have little confidence in official forecasts, preferring to “look out the window” or rely on folk methods, “gut readings,” or previous experience. Increasingly, more people look at their phones to see radar images of storms moving across town or to listen to the latest official warning from a trusted television meteorologist or the National Weather Service (NWS). Some people consider the continuum of weather from bad to good. What is considered “good” weather? The characterization is related to season and locale. The improvements in forecasting have changed how and when people respond to a major blizzard in 2016 compared to people in 1888.
Research Spotlight Box: Forecasts are Improving Dramatically Impacts of Blizzards in the Nineteenth Century Were Devastating Compared with Impacts in 2016
Imagine that you were a farmer in the Northern Great Plains of the United States on January 12, 1888. You were out in the fields feeding your cattle and then you were getting your children ready for school. The weather was mild. In the afternoon, as school was letting out, the temperature dropped 30 degrees and a major blizzard caused blinding snow and cold winds. More than 100 children died on their way home because they were unprepared for the severe snowstorm that occurred (Laskin, 2004). There were no forecasts of that storm that has been named the “Children’s Blizzard.” More than a total of 500 people were killed as a result of that “surprise” storm. There were no “means of monitoring the upper atmosphere, no satellites, no radar, no wireless communications with ships at sea, and no computer models for forecasting the weather” (Moran, 2012:2).
Flash forward to 2017. Forecasts of any major blizzard are made days in advance. As a storm gets closer the forecasts become more precise with probabilities of certain amounts of snow or high wind speeds. Satellites, that orbit the earth continuously, monitor a storm’s developing movements, radar locates snow bands sweeping onshore and observational data from the surface and upper atmosphere feed into sophisticated numerical weather forecast models running on supercomputers. Winter storm watches and warnings are issued by the National Weather Service (NWS). Some schools announce snow days before the first snowflake falls. People go to supermarkets to stock up on bread, water and batteries. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) four‐day predictions for hurricane track have become as reliable as our two‐day predictions were prior to 1995. In 2015, five‐day temperature forecasts have the same level of accuracy that three‐day forecasts had 20 years ago. NWS tornado warning lead times have more than doubled over the past two decades, to an average of 13 minutes (Sullivan, 2013:6).
Unlike 100 years ago, school superintendents use many resources, including local social networks, official government websites, private meteorologists, webcams and other resources to help support their decisions of whether to keep schools open or to close early because of existing or predicted “severe” weather. Recent research efforts summarize the various information sources leaders of school districts use. Their decisions have enormous consequences for public safety (Balog, 2013; Call and Coleman, 2012; Hoekstra, 2012; Montz et al., 2014).
In 2017, many atmospheric scientists with classical training in meteorology recognize that improved forecasting is not the most serious challenge to reducing losses from severe weather, the biggest challenges arise from predicting human behavior in response to these weather events or forecasts. These scientists appreciate that the severity of weather’s impact has at least as much to do with the capability of the population at‐risk to reduce its own vulnerability as it does with the strength of winds, the height of a storm surge, the high temperatures, the depth of flood waters, or the strength of a tornado. A perfect flash flood warning will not affect the behavior of everyone who hears it. People are aware of the risks of driving across flooded roads and know there are warnings in effect but sometimes they HAVE to get somewhere—to work or to pick up the kids. Or, maybe they want to test whether their truck can successfully forge flooded roads (League, 2009; Ruin, 2008). Social scientists can help assure that the forecasts reach the vulnerable people and increase the likelihood that vulnerable people take the appropriate actions in the time they have before the severe weather impact. “An excellent weather forecast, if not properly communicated and acted upon, is of practically no value” (Samenow, 2015a).
This book is the first textbook to share an understanding of how social scientists are working on weather‐related problems. It is not exhaustive or comprehensive in its coverage of all the studies at the intersection of weather and society, but it is representative of the range of scholarship that has been completed and is underway. Many new people are getting involved in this work, so there are simply too many research and operations projects to cover in one book. Also, every day presents us with more flash floods, droughts, tornadoes, or snowstorms to learn about and from.
This book provides an overview and is meant to serve as an introduction to the emerging field of socio‐meteorology. It highlights historic and contemporary collaborative efforts between social scientists and meteorologists at the intersection of weather and society. This book explores the leading edge of weather research that addresses the impacts of forecasts and warnings. It is a 2018 snapshot of a quickly changing landscape where the characters are changing from primarily governmental and academic partners to a dynamic mixture of governmental agencies, academics, and private companies. This book addresses the numerous calls for widening the community at the intersection of weather and society. It provides a first exposure that can broaden academic programs in meteorology, hydrology, environmental studies, geography, natural hazards, anthropology, communication, economics, and sociology across the globe where there is a growing appreciation of more interdisciplinary and multi‐disciplinary approaches to answering questions about how to reduce the negative impacts of weather. It offers an overview of the growing body of literature that tries to solve problems related to weather and society.
Weather and Society: Toward Integrated Approaches is written for anyone who wants to learn about how to think about integrating social science and atmospheric science. This book starts to address the needs of a growing community of people who want to learn about how the social sciences can contribute to solving problems at the intersection of weather and society. Tackling these complex problems, including reducing losses from weather events, calls for interdisciplinary cooperation and multi‐disciplinary approaches. In 2014, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Board on Societal Impacts adopted a professional guidance statement aimed at strengthening social sciences in the weather‐climate enterprise (http://www2.ametsoc.org/stac/index.cfm/boards/board‐on‐societal‐impacts/).
Providing the groundwork for new ways for meteorologists and others to approach their own disciplinary and interdisciplinary challenges, this textbook complements courses offered by various professional societies and professional associations including the National Hydrologic Warning Council (www.hydrologicwarning.org), the American Meteorological Society (www.ametsoc.org), the Association of State Floodplain Managers (www.floods.org), the International Association of Emergency Managers (www.iaem.com), COMET (www.comet.ucar.edu), and other professional groups that have online and in‐person certification courses. All of these groups are seeking ways to incorporate lessons from social science to improve warnings, interagency communication, interdisciplinary partnerships, public and private relationships, and others.
Meteorology textbooks cover a wide range of atmospheric physics principles and applications. They do not emphasize societal impacts of weather or results of social science research studies related to weather. They often use case studies of extreme historical events with an emphasis on the meteorological characteristics such as wind speeds, amount of precipitation, or hail size, but atmospheric science textbooks do not include chapters on how people are affected by the weather or how research by social scientists can reduce vulnerability to severe weather or increase understanding of weather forecasts.
What people do when facing severe weather or when warnings are issued is a central topic of this book. This book provides various considerations of how the NWS is changing the ways its forecasts and warning products are issued to respond to the weather information needs of decision makers including school administrators, emergency managers, ranchers, transportation departments, and others. The discussion of “warnings” in traditional meteorology textbooks covers the products issued by the NWS and mentions briefly the recommended public behavior that the warnings should influence, but there is no impacts section, social science, or societal impacts section (Moran, 2012).
Weather and Society: Toward Integrated Approaches starts with the ways social scientists and others are learning about how people behave in severe weather. This book takes a 30,000‐foot or 10,000‐foot view of the issues at the intersection of weather and society. It provides a big picture of the societal impacts of weather and how social scientists can and do collaborate with meteorologists to address weather challenges that require combined atmospheric and societal approaches. It is written for an audience that recognizes the importance of bringing the applied aspects, or the “so what” factors, together with the more physical science of forecasts.
This book builds on the growing recognition from academia, government, the private sector, and the non‐governmental sector that when meteorologists and social scientists work together, they provide results and products that are greater than the sum of their individual parts. Many early career physical and social scientists and engineers interested in weather seek to learn about concepts, tools, questions, and policies related to more than one discipline, but most academic departments, especially in meteorology and hydrology, are too narrow to allow much leeway for electives outside of their narrowly defined discipline.
Since 2000 the integrated atmospheric‐social science community has relied on informal social media networks that have risen in popularity and proved their usefulness. As of 2018, these social networks include Facebook, Twitter, NWS chats, and blogs as the main sources of data and information, since more standard, classical sources tend to remain quite narrow in their uni‐dimensional or uni‐disciplinary approaches. It is time for a more formal and organized approach.
This book includes new perspectives from a wide variety of specialties that are taking into account the societal impacts of weather and developing new ways of thinking about forecast verification. It means stepping into new points of view and being open minded to new ways of seeing weather and its impacts. It presents ideas that are being developed by a community of scholars and practitioners dedicated to changing the stove‐piped culture of current scientific disciplines. This community is devoted to new problem‐solving approaches and is willing to take the time necessary to learn the languages and perspectives of people from different backgrounds and disciplines. This book uses case studies to highlight the complexity and multi‐dimensional aspects of some of the most pressing problems at the intersection of weather and society. The book shows how different social scientists have framed and represented their integrated work. Using many figures from recent publications and presentations provides the “look and feel” of how integrated work is conducted and reported.
Weather and Society: Toward Integrated Approaches has seven main goals:
To create an environment where scientists and teachers can develop materials for stand‐alone meteorology or weather‐society courses or to supplement current materials with a social science dimension;
To provide the groundwork for conducting interdisciplinary work by learning new strategies and addressing typical challenges;
To expose the readers to various social sciences, the methods they use, and the ways they share their data;
To identify research, application, and educational opportunities for integrated weather‐society work;
To review the major institutional efforts to bring social science and social scientists into the research and practice of meteorologists and hydrologists in sustainable ways;
To show central topics for the new hybrid socio‐meteorologists; and,
To provide a summary of key challenges and directions for work in the near and distant future.
This book aims to jumpstart the dialogue between all the partners. The vision for this textbook is that “it has something for everyone but it is not everything for anybody.” It is a smorgasbord of people and their activities at the intersection of weather and society. This book shows students, faculty members, forecasters, emergency managers, broadcast meteorologists, and many others who never have seriously thought about their studies or their work in this new context that there are enormous challenges as well as career opportunities at the intersection of weather and society.
Weather affects so many aspects of daily life and researchers from many disciplines research weather impacts. Weather and crime (Ranson, 2013); weather and art (e.g., Thornes, 2008); weather and tourism (e.g., Denstadli et al., 2011; Sabir et al., 2014; Martín, 2005; Jeuring and Becken, 2013); weather and election day turnout (e.g., Persson et al., 2014); weather and fashion (Hershey, 2015); weather and traffic accidents (e.g., Hranac et al., 2006; Dell’Acqua et al., 2012; Strong et al., 2010; Cai et al., 2013); weather and the number of broken bones a hospital can expect to treat (e.g., Murray et al., 2011); weather and its effects on home health care providers (Joseph et al., 2012; Skinner et al., 2009); what kind of weather makes people sad (e.g., Huibers et al., 2010); and even how moods are related to stock market activity (Früwirth and Sögner, 2015)—these are research topics at the intersection of weather and society.
1.2 The Audience for This Book
Many meteorology, hydrology, and ecology students are asking about the social aspects of weather. They observe how professional societies like the National Weather Association (NWA) organize sessions to reach out to the victims of recent weather disasters such as the 2011 town hall session dedicated to learning from the experience of the Tuscaloosa tornado victims. Other students become interested in the social aspects of meteorology because of some disaster that hit close to their home or caught their attention and concern through news reports (www.nwa.org).
More and more graduate students, potential graduate students, NWS employees, hydrologists, public safety officials, and others recognize that some understanding of social science and societal impacts can enhance their work as practitioners, researchers, or students. They also realize that it is frustrating and difficult to find reference materials or courses to meet their need within the traditional university departments of meteorology, atmospheric science, hydrology, or even physical geography. This book’s intended audience is anyone who wants to learn about the intersection of atmospheric science and the social sciences. The book aims to reach out to students who represent the next generations of scientists and practitioners with the intent to provide a platform for new ways of approaching pressing problems at the intersection of weather and society.
The topic of the societal impacts of weather is becoming more visible. Each year at national meteorology conferences, including the American Meteorological Society and the National Weather Association, there are more professionals who are presenting research findings related to improving communication to the public. They recognize that the societal impacts of weather is an important and upcoming field especially as the set of normal conditions is replaced by new “normals” in terms of extreme weather as the impacts of climate change intensify and social media offers many options new real‐time communication of weather conditions and forecasts.
This book shows examples of recent work, but unfortunately as of 2017 there is no academic program specifically focusing on the societal impacts of weather. Even without official programs and sanctions, the community of practitioners and researchers who work in integrated teams or who appreciate the value of interdisciplinary collaboration at the intersection of weather and society is getting larger and more diverse. Even though the field is in its infancy relative to the body of atmospheric science literatures as a whole, the social science studies available are too numerous to describe all of them. For example, as of June 2015, a Googlescholar search for articles related 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and social science, shows 50,400 links overall (accessed June 10, 2015).
In this rapidly developing field, every day brings new large and small research findings, changes in forecasting operations, and reports written and published by students and researchers from agencies and universities that increase understanding of how weather information can be most effectively packaged and communicated for all of us who make weather‐sensitive decisions.
