Expert judgement and communication of uncertainty in the production of climate information

Background

The provision of weather and climate information services to support decision making involves expert judgement as to how uncertainties are characterised and communicated. At each stage of the process by which climate data is transformed into information and services, uncertainties arise from different sources that may be related to scenario, measurement, modelling or variability. How these are characterised and then communicated to others throughout the process will determine what is presented to decision makers.
While there is increasing recognition that uncertainty in climate services needs to be effectively communicated to decision makers, questions remain as to how this can most effectively be achieved. Moreover, the matter of how those providing the information make decisions about how to characterise and then communicate uncertainty remains under researched. In a collaborative project with JBA this project will help to address this.

PhD Opportunity

The production of climate information services for decision support requires that data goes through several stages before being provided to end users, from observations and measurement to global and regional climate models, impact models and translation into climate information services. This project explores a) expert judgement about which uncertainties are most critical to the climate data they work with and, b) how this might be effectively communicated to those integrating it into decision making. It will use approaches such as cognitive process tracing and/or expert elicitation to understand how uncertainty is conceptualised, characterised and communicated by those involved in the process of producing climate information, as well social science methodologies such as interviews and surveys to explore how information about uncertainty is understood and utilised by decision makers.

In this PhD, you will have flexibility to co-design the focus of the project with JBA.
You will have access to a range of professional experts to research how uncertainty is currently propagated and reflected through the climate service ‘value chain’. You will have the opportunity to work in a choice of sectors e,g, UK flood risk management, international development or infrastructure operators such as the rail industry. You will investigate options for improving information and communication for decision makers e.g. using storylines or novel probabilistic techniques.

Focal topics could include
-Exploration of uncertainty in JBA’s current climate change products and how clients use information about uncertainty.
-How uncertainty associated with shared socioeconomic pathways, regional climate projections and global warming levels is understood by financial sector users of this information, and how this could be calculated and communicated in the most useful way.
-Whether storylines could represent a more effective way of communicating uncertainty than standard probability ranges.

Applicant Profile

This strongly interdisciplinary project would be suitable for students with either a background in physical science and an interest in how scientific uncertainty is used and interpreted, or a background in social or behavioural science with a desire to understand how scientific uncertainty can be both characterised and communicated. Students should have a basic knowledge of statistics.

Other information

https://business.leeds.ac.uk/departments-analytics-technology-operations/staff/358/dr-andrea-taylor

https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/see/staff/1234/professor-suraje-dessai

https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/see/staff/1158/dr-ajay-bhave