Volume 32, May 2015, Pages 1–10
Bridging science and community knowledge? The complicating role of natural variability in perceptions of climate change
Highlights
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- Perception of variability presents a challenge to social science of climate research.
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- Treatment of variability in social science research remains limited.
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- Excluding variability complicates the synthesis of climate perceptions/observations.
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- An example is presented for rural Newfoundland (Canada).
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- 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.
