School of Earth and Environment

Communicating and visualising climate

projections – user preferences and

abilities amongst adaptation practitioners

in local authorities in Germany

Susanne Lorenz, Suraje Dessai, Piers Forster, Jouni Paavola

Third Nordic International Conference on Climate Change Adaptation, Copenhagen,

25-27 August 2014 Adapting to change: from research to decision-making

Theme 2 – Mainstreaming

25th August 2014 1

• Climate visualisations and the ‘departure from rationality’

• Research questions and how we seek to answer them

• Results

– Objective comprehension

– Likelihood

– Confidence

– Trust

• Discussion

• Reality check

Overview

2

‘Although there are many guidelines for climate

communication, there is little empirical evidence of

their efficacy, whether or not dispassionately

explaining the science or for persuading people to

act in more sustainable ways.’ (Pidgeon & Fischhoff

2011: 35)

Research context

3

Why climate visualisations?

1. Help explore possible futures (Schneider 2012)

2. Make complexity easier to comprehend (Stengel et al.

2008)

3. Crucial tools for communicating and can function as

decision-making tools (Schneider 2012)

Research context

4

• Imply a common sense idea of how graphic methods are to be

practically employed (Schneider 2012: 188)

• Rely on creating an impression of data properties within the

mind of the observer (Gahegan 1999: 289)

• Are persuasive and can provide intuitive understanding of

complex data (Johansson et al. 2010: 156)

• May also elicit stronger affective responses than other

representations (Bostrom et al. 2008)

Research context

5

• Ensuring effective communication needs awareness of

complex interaction between comprehension,

preferences and processing (Spiegelhalter 2011)

• Awareness that rational decision-maker does not exist (this

is not news!) (e.g. Kahnemann & Tversky 1984)

• Interaction between comprehension, preferences and

processing may not always be rational

Research context

6

• Cognitive illusions for producers and users of climate

projections are under-researched (Nicholls 1995)

• But they can lead to departures from rational thinking

(Nicholls 1995)

• Audience-specific communication needed – are there

cognitive biases at play amongst climate adaptation

practitioners?

Background

7

• Are there differences in levels of objective

comprehension amongst adaptation

practitioners?

• Do evaluations of likelihood, confidence and

trust vary depending on the visualisation?

• What is the relationship between confidence and

trust and objective comprehension?

Research question

8

• Online-survey on visualising

climate projections with adaptation

practitioners

• 63 respondents from Local

Authorities from across Germany

• 21 semi-structured interviews with

adaptation practitioners at local and

regional level in North Rhine-

Westphalia

Methodology

9

Source: DAAD 2014

Survey design

10

Scatter Plot

Pictograph

Survey design

11

Scatter Plot vs. Pictograph

The same questions get asked

for both graphs

How many models project a

decrease in summer temperature?

None of the models project a

temperature change above which

temperature threshold (to the

nearest half of a degree)?

Survey design

12

Bubble Plot

Histogram

Survey design

13

Scatter Plot vs. Pictograph Histogram vs. Bubble Plot

The same questions get asked

for both graphs

The same questions get asked

for both graphs

How many models project a

decrease in summer temperature?

None of the models project a

temperature change above which

temperature threshold (to the

nearest half of a degree)?

Which is the most likely

temperature change projected

by the models?

Are you more likely to get a

temperature change below -

2.5°C or above 5.0°C?

Traditional vs. alternative

14

Does it matter what we show?

15

47% are better on traditional

figures

Does it matter what we show?

16

40% are better on

alternative figures

Does it matter what we show?

17

13% get the same score on

alternative and

traditional figures

• Objective comprehension varies between adaptation

practitioners

• Not a homogenous target audience in terms of objective

comprehension

• Multiple diverse visualisations may objectively be more

effective

Objective comprehension

18

Likelihood

19

How do you expect the mean summer temperature to change in

the future according to the figure?

0.0

10.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

80.0

90.0

100.0

ScatterPlot

Histogram Pictograph Bubble Plot

Pe

rce

nta

ge o

f re

spo

nd

en

ts High probability of an increase

Medium probability of anincrease

Low probability of an increase

No change

Low probability of a decrease

Medium probability of adecrease

High probability of a decrease

• Likelihood estimation of temperature change does not vary

significantly between any of the four figures

• Likelihood estimation = independent of the figure?

• Prior biases/ expectations/ beliefs at play with this audience?

• Confirmation bias

– when users hold strong pre-existing beliefs regarding future

climate

– Attend more to information that confirms pre-existing

beliefs

Likelihood

20

Confidence

21

0.0

10.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

80.0

90.0

100.0

Scatter Plot Histogram Pictograph Bubble Plot

Pe

rce

nta

ge o

f re

spo

nd

en

ts

Confidence Level 6

Confidence Level 5

Confidence Level 4

Confidence Level 3

Confidence Level 2

Confidence Level 1

How confident are you in the response to the previous question?

(1 = not confident at all, 6 = very confident)

• Whereas likelihood does not vary, there are significant

differences in confidence between most figures

• Exception: Histogram vs. Bubble Plot

• Only just not significant with a p value of 0.051 (Wilcoxon signed

rank test)

Confidence

22

Trust

23

If these visualisations were to be used for the communication of

climate projections, how much would you trust the reliability of

the information contained in them? (1= not at all, 6 = a lot)

0.0

20.0

40.0

60.0

80.0

100.0

Scatter Plot Histogram Pictograph Bubble Plot

Pe

rce

nta

ge o

f re

spo

nd

en

ts

Trust Level 6

Trust Level 5

Trust Level 4

Trust Level 3

Trust Level 2

Trust Level 1

• As with confidence, there are also significant differences in

trust between most figures (Wilcoxon Signed Rank test)

• Exception: Pictograph vs. Bubble Plot

Trust

24

Confidence and likelihood

25

Scatter Plot Confidence

Histogram Confidence

Pictograph Confidence

Bubble Plot Confidence

Low High Low High Low High Low High

High prob. of a decrease in T

10.0% 0% 7.7% 0% 4.2% 0% 5.6% 0%

Medium prob. of a decrease in T

0% 0% 0% 0% 4.2% 0% 0% 0%

Low prob. of a decrease in T

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

No change in T

10.0% 0% 0.0% 0% 12.5% 0% 0% 0%

Low prob. of an increase in T

0% 0% 0% 0% 8.3% 0% 0% 0%

Medium prob. of an increase in T

50.0%

13.2% 53.8% 16.0% 54.2% 25.6% 55.6% 17.8%

High prob. of an increase in T

30.0% 86.8% 38.5% 84.0% 16.7% 74.4% 38.9% 82.2%

• Strong association between estimated likelihood and

confidence

• Content familiarity - window onto a familiar world (Roth

2002, Sha & Freedman 2011

• Content familiarity - attempt to confirm or disconfirm

relationships based on prior expectations or beliefs (Sha &

Freedman 2011)

• Confirmation bias – mean summer temperature change

expected in Germany – not a surprise?

Confidence and likelihood

26

• For Histogram, Scatter Plot, Bubble Plot confidence seems to

be high regardless of level of trust

• Confidence more internal (self-assessed) – trust more

external

• Trusting your abilities vs. believing what you see

• Relationship for pictograph seems more logical – in that low trust

links to low confidence and high trust links to high confidence

• More ‘logical’ judgements when confronted with something new/

unfamiliar?

Confidence and trust

27

• Only significant association between confidence and objective

comprehension for the pictograph (only small effect size,

Kruskall-Wallis test)

– Respondents with higher objective comprehension are also more

confident in their assessment, lower objective comprehension are

less confidence

• Lack of an association for the other -> objective comprehension

is not linked to subjective confidence?

• Maybe link does exist for the unfamiliar visualisations only?

Confidence and objective

comprehension

28

• Awareness of variability within the target audience - objective

comprehension, confidence and trust are all variable

• The only ‘constant’ seems to be likelihood – due to a cognitive

bias?

• Evaluating effectiveness of visualisations does not just depend

on objective comprehension and preferences but also on the

cognitive biases that might be at play

• Balance showing familiar visualisations (risk stronger biases)

with unfamiliar visualisations (possibly more logical processing)

but less willingness to engage?

Conclusion

29

• No mandatory legislative targets for adaptation at local

government scale in Germany (though this would be welcomed

by practitioners)

• Most activity focuses on awareness raising in majority of councils

- adaptation is in the starting blocks

• Climate projections are rarely needed/ used – only for specific

projects in the bigger cities

• But, if climate communication is mainly used for awareness

raising, do we need greater recognition of cognitive biases that

can help/ hinder both the explanation of the science and potential

persuasion/ buy in for action?

Practical ‘reality check’

30

Thank you!

Susanne Lorenz

School of Earth and Environment

University of Leeds, UK

ee08sl@leeds.ac.uk

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/people/s.lorenz

https://twitter.com/Susanne_Lorenz

31

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References

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