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Friday, 1 May 2015

Bridging science and community knowledge? The complicating role of natural variability in perceptions of climate change

Volume 32, May 2015, Pages 1–10

Bridging science and community knowledge? The complicating role of natural variability in perceptions of climate change


Highlights

Perception of variability presents a challenge to social science of climate research.
Treatment of variability in social science research remains limited.
Excluding variability complicates the synthesis of climate perceptions/observations.
An example is presented for rural Newfoundland (Canada).
Understanding of variability perception can improve climate communication efforts.

Abstract

Although the spatial and temporal scales on which climate varies is a prominent aspect of climate research in the natural sciences, its treatment in the social sciences remains relatively underdeveloped. The result is limited understanding of the public's capacity to perceive climate variability as distinct from change, and uncertainty surrounding how and when to best communicate information on variability/change. Ignoring variability in favour of change-focused analyses and language risks significant misrepresentation of public perception and knowledge, and precludes detailed synthesis of data from the social and natural sciences. An example is presented based on a regional comparison of variability-dominated climate observations and change-focused survey data, collected in western Newfoundland (Canada). This region experiences pronounced, slow-varying natural variability, which acted to obscure broader climate trends through the 1980s and 1990s; since the late 1990s, the same variability has amplified apparent change. While survey results confirm residents perceive regional climate change, it is not clear whether respondents distinguish variability from change. This presents uncertainty in the best approach to climate science communication in this region, and raises concern that subsequent variability-driven transient cooling will erode public support for climate action. Parallels are drawn between these regional concerns and similar uncertainty surrounding treatment of variability in discussion of global temperature trends, highlighting variability perception as a significant gap in human dimensions of climate change research.

Keywords

  • Climate change;
  • Perception;
  • Attitudes;
  • Variability;
  • Canada

1. Introduction

In this paper, we argue that an improved understanding of the ways in which natural climate variability shapes perceptions of climate change is integral to understanding the relationship between climate science and local climate knowledge. Climate change scientific knowledge production and public understandings of climate change typically operate at a dual register. The work of producing scientific knowledge about climate change accounts for complexity and uncertainty and operates through the academic conventions of peer review, including the layers of review involved in producing the IPCC reports. By contrast, public understandings of climate change are influenced by often-simplified media representations and political debates, as well as social interactions with family, friends, and co-workers. It is also shaped by personal experiences of living in a particular climate, moderated by the degree to which individuals are affected/impacted by climate variations or anomalies, and ultimately filtered through the fallibility of memory. All of us experience considerable climate variability, from extreme seasonal anomalies associated with phenomena such as El Nino (Changnon, 1999) to slower shifts in climate norms associated with decades-long fluctuations such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (Mantua and Hare, 2002); however, the degree to which this personal experience informs perception of change remains uncertain.
Media coverage and public communication of climate change science frequently limit discussion of natural variability in order to emphasize core findings regarding change, construct narratives that reduce issue complexity, and/or fit climate change into a “media logic” that emphasizes conflict and drama (Berglez, 2011; also see Anderson, 2009, Boykoff, 2011 and Freudenburg and Muselli, 2010). There is an underlying assumption in this approach to climate science communication that the general public is ill-suited to considerations of variability and uncertainty; however, it also risks misrepresenting the process of scientific knowledge production while exposing climate change consensus to simplistic (and spurious) criticism related to scientific rigour and claims of certainty. We stress that improving our understanding of the public's capacity to perceive and account for variability will facilitate the development of more nuanced (and potentially effective) climate communication strategies that equip the public with the cultural competencies to engage the complexity of climate science and move beyond over-simplified, binary modes of debating this issue. The case is framed around a regional quantitative comparison of the climate record and climate perception data for western Newfoundland, illustrating ways in which excluding analyses of variability can lead to misinterpretation of perception data. Parallels are drawn between concerns on this regional scale and related misconceptions surrounding recent trends in global temperatures.
In the wake of the “climategate” controversy, there has been increased scrutiny of the authority of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the dominant organization responsible for defining the state of knowledge about climate change (Beck, 2012). Uncertainty and complexity are part of the ongoing work of producing scientific knowledge about climate change. However, this is often lost in communication about climate science in media and political spheres, where discussion of uncertainty is viewed by many non-scientists to undermine the legitimacy of IPCC knowledge claims. We argue for an approach to climate science communication that adequately conveys uncertainty and complexity to the public and policy-makers, and cultivates the necessary cultural competencies for various publics, media-workers and politicians to engage with climate science. Bridging science and community knowledge, while better accounting for natural climate variability, may help avoid the discourse traps created by the unproductive climate consensus vs. sceptic binary that continues to circulate through mass media and political debate.
One way to work towards this model of climate science communication is to devote more attention to the experiential forces that shape public perceptions of climate change and draw connections between cultural and scientific climate change research (Lahsen, 2013). This requires examining and understanding the links between observations or climate change projections and the “local climate knowledge” of communities inhabiting particular environments experiencing a diversity of climate change impacts (Krauss and von Storch, 2012).
An emphasis on integrating uncertainty and complexity into public understandings of climate science implies the need for greater consideration of climate variability, the semi-regular fluctuation of climate about its mean state. Variability is a prominent area of physical climatology research, feeding into studies of climate change attribution (Hasselmann, 1997) and environmental predictability (Barnston et al., 2005). Of growing interest are a number of slow-acting modes of variability that produce an oscillating series of relatively cool and warm periods in affected regions that can persist for several decades. In some cases, the magnitude of these oscillations can be considerably greater than the local impact of long-term climate change, either obscuring or enhancing apparent trends. On global scales, variability has been connected to varying rates of climate trends over different time periods, including the relatively slow surface warming over the past decade (Balmaseda et al., 2013, Foster and Rahmstorf, 2011, Kosaka and Xie, 2013, Meehl et al., 2011, Trenberth and Fasullo, 2013 and Tsonis et al., 2008). This variability represents a significant source of uncertainty in the quantification of climate change, and efforts to assess impacts of climate change at all scales must carefully account for the influence of relevant modes of variability (e.g. Foster and Rahmstorf, 2011).
Variability has received relatively less attention outside of the natural sciences. Although there is abundant literature examining the perception of either climate change or risks associated with climate variability and change, the perception of climate variability itself is rarely addressed explicitly. The issue is addressed indirectly in some social science of climate change research, and a review of relevant literature presents a mixed impression of the public's capacity to distinguish long-term change and variability. Analyses of climate change media coverage confirms that the two are often confused (Boykoff, 2011), and several recent studies suggest public attitudes towards climate change science are significantly impacted by short-term variation in the form of weather (Donner and McDaniels, 2013, Li et al., 2011, Egan and Mullin, 2012 and Hamilton and Stampone, 2013). Other studies indicate that some populations involved in active, regular land use demonstrate an ability to identify climate variability operating over surprisingly long time scales (Riedlinger and Berkes, 2001, Wolf et al., 2013, Crate, 2008, Crate, 2011 and West and Vásquez-León, 2008). Together, these suggest the question of variability perception warrants deeper investigation, and represents a considerable gap in the current body of knowledge regarding human dimensions of climate change.

1.1. Influences on climate change perception and attitudes

In recent years, a growing social science literature has explored the factors shaping public opinion about climate change. Perceptions research has addressed several dimensions, such as whether it is viewed as a problem at all, who is seen to be at risk, who is responsible for addressing the issue, and what should be done about it.
Media treatment has been identified as a prominent influence shaping public perception (Anderson, 2009, Billett, 2010, Boykoff, 2011, Brossard et al., 2004, Carvalho, 2007, Castells, 2009, Dispensa and Brulle, 2003, Freudenburg and Muselli, 2010, Gavin and Marshall, 2011, Young and Dugas, 2011 and Young and Dugas, 2012), framing the issue of climate change and variability in potentially misleading ways. Boykoff (2011) notes that mass media discussions of climate change have consistently blended weather, as a short-term, localized phenomenon, with the larger-scale and longer time-frame changes to the earth's climate. He writes:
When considering how complex processes have been made meaningful in the public arena, discussing the weather as a component of longer-term climate change has been commonplace. Connections made between weather and climate have provided logical bridges that have been crossed many times in media representations up to the present day. (Boykoff, 2011 pp. 42–43)
That is, the media frequently presents variability as a manifestation of change. This body of research also demonstrates that U.S. media constructs a “false balance” between climate change “believers” and “sceptics” by giving disproportionate attention to the minority of scientists that reject the mainstream consensus position that anthropogenic climate change is occurring and requires political action (Boykoff, 2011, Carvalho, 2007 and Freudenburg and Muselli, 2010). This minority emphasises uncertainty in climatological analyses, often by framing climate change as simple variability, likely to reverse in the near future (Freudenburg and Muselli, 2013). Debates about scientific uncertainty are most visible in U.S. media, though this “American model” of climate change news coverage is in evidence elsewhere, including Canada (Young and Dugas, 2011). By contrast, media in many other countries largely adopts the consensus climate position, with debate more likely to centre on which political actors are most responsible and which strategies for mitigation and adaptation are most desirable (Billett, 2010, Brossard et al., 2004, Brulle et al., 2012 and Dispensa and Brulle, 2003).
Other factors of concern include the influence of social actors such as political elites and environmental social movements. Brulle et al. (2012) argue these factors have a greater impact than extreme weather events (i.e. rare, acute manifestations of short-term variability) or direct communication of climate change science. These actors partly contribute to media's influence, through their reliance on mass media as a means of reaching the public. These results reflect the degree to which public opinion in the U.S. has become politically polarized over the past decade (2001–2010; McCright and Dunlap, 2011b). During the early stages of media visibility and public discussion of climate change, perceptions of the reality and seriousness of the issue were not strongly linked to political affiliation. However, as climate change has gained visibility and greater political significance, public opinion has become increasingly aligned with political party affiliation, with Democrats more likely to be climate change “believers” and Republicans more likely to align with climate “sceptics” (with white male conservatives most likely to espouse sceptical views) (McCright and Dunlap, 2011a and McCright and Dunlap, 2011b). According to Dunlap and his co-authors, the long-term trend towards the political polarization of climate change is driven by the organized climate sceptic movement, which solidified and gained prominence following the 1997 Kyoto protocol meetings through the support of American-based conservative think tanks (McCright and Dunlap, 2010 and Dunlap and Jacques, 2013). The language and tactics employed by these groups often frame the concepts of climate variability and natural cycles as alternative explanations for observed shifts, while also emphasizing that scientific uncertainty around the issue implies more research is required before any action is taken. The related topics of variability and uncertainty may consequently themselves become politically charged, as these terms become associated with a sceptical stance on climate change.
Of particular relevance to the current work are recent studies identifying the experience of weather, or short-term variability unrelated to broader climate trends, as a factor influencing climate change attitudes. Focused largely on the U.S., these studies demonstrate that opinions and concerns surrounding climate change are often linked to temperature anomalies on national (Donner and McDaniels, 2013) and/or local scales (Li et al., 2011, Egan and Mullin, 2012 and Hamilton and Stampone, 2013). Results show that climate concerns rise and fall with temperatures, even on daily timescales. While these studies confirm that variability exerts an influence on climate perceptions, the degree to which they reflect an inability to differentiate between climate and weather remains unclear. The day-to-day variations in opinion reported by Li et al. (2011) and Hamilton and Stampone (2013) in particular suggest considerable ambivalence remains towards the subject of climate change, with weather providing a short-lived additional influence on undecided respondents that temporarily shifts the balance of other (largely social) factors contributing to this ambivalence.
Personal experience of long-term climate shifts can also exert an influence as strong or stronger than non-climate factors and short-term variation. Hamilton and Keim (2009) report that public attitudes towards climate change better align with scientific consensus in areas where warming temperatures produce marked visible effects, such as reduced snow days or a shortened snow season. Other studies confirm that perceived experience of climate change is strongly related to perceived climate risks, but caution that not all reported changes are evident in environmental records (e.g. Akerlof et al., 2013). Similarly, Zahran et al. (2006) found that perceived risk of climate change impacts is strongly connected to climate concerns, but that risk perception does not necessarily correlate with quantified risk levels (i.e. perceived risk is not always greater in regions with greatest predicted risk). It is suggested that such disagreements are the result of interpreting climate through the filter of various environmental (e.g. presence of some quantifiable changes) and social factors (e.g. media, political affiliation etc.).
Considerations of climate fluctuations other than ‘change’ (implied to be long-term or permanent) and ‘weather’ (implying variations over hours to 2 weeks) are relatively rare in the climate perceptions literature. However, a handful of studies do explicitly address variability acting over longer timescales, often in relation to climate adaptation research (Thomas et al., 2007, Mertz et al., 2009 and Kassie et al., 2013). This includes treatment of variations between seasons, years, and (occasionally) between decades, respectively referred to as intra-annual, inter-annual, and decadal variability; collectively, these may be referred to as low frequency (long duration) variability, in contrast to the high frequency (short duration) variability associated with weather or extreme events. Unfortunately, low frequency variability is typically handled with less detail and clarity than high frequency variability. Often, it is included only in analyses of climate records presented as a complement to change perception data (e.g. Thomas et al., 2007 and Mertz et al., 2009). When included in perception surveys, it is often limited to intra- or inter-annual variability, leaving perception of decadal variability undeveloped. Survey and interview questions also often focus on changing variability (i.e. whether extremes are becoming larger, or conditions becoming less predictable) as an aspect of ongoing climate change, without treatment of the perception of variability itself (e.g. Kassie et al., 2013). We are unaware of any efforts to assess perception across the full spectrum of climate variability (from weather to decadal-scales).
The suggestion that low frequency variability should be considered in climate perception studies is supported by detailed studies of specific populations, which often indicate a considerable capacity to recognize variability over a large range of time-scales, and distinguish it from long-term change. This is often reported among people actively involved in land use. Prominent examples include detailed recall of past climate anomalies by Inuit populations, which are often used to give context to recent patterns (Riedlinger and Berkes, 2001 and Wolf et al., 2013). Similar recall and comparison is reported by Crate (Crate, 2008 and Crate, 2011) for the Sakha in eastern Siberia. Some land-users demonstrate a greater understanding of landscape impacts of slow-acting variability than related scientific literature. An example are ranchers in Arizona, who have been held responsible for ecological change following settlement of the region; only recently have ecologists and environmental scientists begun to recognize the role precipitation variability has played in these changes, despite the insistence of ranchers that this has been a dominant contributor (West and Vásquez-León, 2008). However, while these studies confirm a capacity for recognizing variability, reported results continue to focus on how change is qualified and interpreted. The result is limited information on the broader understanding of variability, its time scales, and the reach of its local influence by these specific populations. Information on variability perception beyond local scales (national or international level) is even less developed.
Drawing together this body of social science research on climate change, different studies emphasize different key influences on public opinion: media coverage, weather anomalies, environmental change, and cues from politicians or social movements. These different results suggest that, rather than searching for a single main driver, public perceptions of climate change are shaped by the interplay of multiple factors, including direct experience of weather/climate. We further suggest that variability requires more attention than currently given in analyses of climate perception; specifically, consideration of lower frequency variability, on the order of years to decades, is needed. Given the tendency for high frequency variability (e.g. daily weather) to influence climate change concerns, as well as the significant regional influence of many modes of climate variability, this low frequency variability may dominate climate perceptions in some areas. To the degree that support for climate action is dependent on perception of change, this variability then presents a considerable obstacle to risk perception.