Talking About El Niño: First, Choose Your Monster

Talking About El Niño: First, Choose Your Monster

In February, I attended a meeting that included sessions on communicating El Niño. I was not part of the panel, just an active member of the audience. Some of the people on the panel actually have the job to communicate the expected impacts of El Niño to real people. Those who try to make decisions, for example, farmers and water managers. It was pretty clear by February that the 2015-2016 El Niño was not going to bring the rain and snow to Southern California and Arizona that had been advertised in Fall 2015 and the early winter. So the real question was how do we do better explaining the predictions and their uncertainties.

What I want to do in this blog is, first, a little bit of personal analysis and, then, I had the great idea to look around and see what had been written on communicating El Niño. Then, of course, there is Godzilla.

In my personal analysis, I started by looking back to the 1997-98 El Niño. In my September 2015 blog, El Niño and California Drought: Simplistically, I looked back at the reporting and post analysis in 1997 and 1998 and many of the words used then are easy to re-use now. There are, however, some important differences between now and 1997. In a general sense, climate, for sure, and weather, seemingly, is far more present in the public forum than it was in 1997 and 1998. I struggled with that word “forum.” Press? Media? The press (newspaper, networks, agencies, etc.) is quite different than in the late 1990s. Structured, standard-adhering organizations of journalists have a less prominent position. Journalism’s principles of objectivity and checking are increasingly rare. There has been the emergence of point-of-view journalism, Fox News, MSNBC.

The traditional press has been supplemented (supplanted ?) by many websites and weather-and-climate presence on social media, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Some of the websites, like this one, are associated with weather-anchored businesses. There is direct access to government forecasts. There is access to international information. All told, there is far more access to people writing and talking about El Niño. The communication of El Niño is, as they say, more democratic. This democracy carries on with little filtering imposed on accuracy of information or, even, appropriateness of the message.

Some of the people writing are scientists, like me. I am not an expert on forecasting, seasonal prediction, or the impacts of El Niño. At some level, I am an un-credentialed scientist, acting as an un-credentialed journalist. Bud Ward, a credentialed journalist, has an analysis entitled Are Meteorologists Environmental Journalists? He concludes, “So, are meteorologists environmental journalists? It’s for each to decide. So too is it for environmental journalists to decide the extent to which they need to better reflect some of the approaches of meteorologists. And, for that matter, of earth and social scientists when it comes to the issue of adequately informing the public at large on critical climate issues.”

I think it is safe to say that when scientists write and speak in public, they are often given a high level of credibility. This is true, even, when scientists write and say things that are not true.

The number of scientists writing and speaking, publicly, about El Niño in 2015 is much higher that in 1997 (an unscientific, un-measured statement). Scientists write for the same reason as other people: truthsaying, need, organizational pressure, peer pressure, money, self-advertisement, attention, vanity. It is not hard to find these attributes in writings on the web. Scientists are often discovering their communication skills. The presence of scientists in the public forum complicates the communication of El Niño. Not sure it makes it better.

One attribute of scientists in the public forum that Christine Shearer and I noted is that scientists sometimes carry out their scientific arguments in the public forum. For example competing ideas on what “caused” something to happen or whether or not an event was “caused by climate change.” Another attribute, I note, is that scientists, like others, confuse attention with communication. Attention is, in my experience, associated with statements that are controversial, extreme, contrarian, or invoking cultural or fashionable imagery.

Anyway, I feel that the scientist communicator is an important difference between 1997 and 2015. I conjecture that the strong definitive statements about the strength of the 2015-2016 El Niño and its impacts made communication more difficult. The system rewards definitive statements of extremes. That people wanted a lot of rain and snow in Southern California and Arizona to end the drought provides appealing likeability to the message.

A major change between 1997 and 2015 is the emergence of “access, scan, and evaluate” as the way we collect knowledge from the web, sometimes for remarkably consequential analysis. So access, scan, and evaluate “communicating El Niño.” Some of the links are at the end. I note, in particular, the Tip Sheet from ClimateAccess, which front and center has:

“Emphasize that El Niño isn’t a cure for California’s drought. It’s understandable that Californians are eager for any sign of rain during this historic drought, however the higher-than-average rainfall associated with El Niño, while helpful, likely won’t be enough to end the drought. Additionally, warmer temperatures may prevent snowpack, an important year-round water supply for the state.”

The Tip Sheet has links to many other resources and a recording of a roundtable discussion (that I have not listened to).

I will also point out the National Academy Report Communicating Uncertainties in Weather and Climate: A Workshop Summary (2003). Here are some items extracted from their case study of the 1997-98 El Niño.

“This was the largest and warmest El Niño to develop in the Pacific Ocean during the past 100 years.”

“The news media gave great attention to this El Niño, and it received more attention at all levels than any previous climate event.”

“Classic ENSO patterns and impacts can be unreliable as a guide for predictions of impact of new ENSO events. The 1997-1998 ENSO event was not a repeat of the 1982-1983 ENSO event.”

Hmm. Where have all the flowers gone?

I end with Godzilla. I started my research for this blog (access, scan, evaluate) looking for academic discussions of Godzilla. I really wanted to know if Godzilla had died. I am even less of a Godzilla expert than I am an El Niño expert. But in my Godzilla movie experience, I had never seen a convincing death. My accessing and scanning found four times Godzilla seems to have convincingly died. One time was stated to be ambiguous as Godzilla’s beating heart remained, and most feel that Godzilla does have regenerative capabilities. Already, I had read that This El Niño is not Godzilla. I have been annoying enough.

r

El Niño and La Niña are names given to frequently occurring patterns of variation that are concentrated in the tropical Pacific Ocean, but that change the average temperature of Earth for about a year. When there is an El Niño the globe is warmer, and when there is a La Niña the globe is cooler.


Tip Sheet: Communicating El Niño Impacts Here is the direct link to the Tip Sheet.

El Niño Special: Communicating During the Storm

With El Niño, Be Careful What You Wish for

What Happens in the Atmosphere During El Niño?

Why Do We Care So Much About El Niño?

Two that are especially interesting

U.S. Golf Association

Strong El Niño and Southern Golf Courses

El Niño II, As Problems Mount, Document and Communicate

Orange County

Preparing for El Niño

El Nino Communication Tool Kit