Identifying a Behavioral Objective for Weather Messaging: The Concept of Informed Decision-Making, its Assumptions, and Operational Implications

The physical science aspects of meteorology all tend to share fairly straightforward, commonly-understood goals: better theoretical understanding to guide analysis of real-world data; better modeling techniques that result in lower error rates, and so on. In the social science aspects of the field, the goals are often much less clear, and different scholars make different assumptions about what they are - often guided by the methods they have chosen. According to Murphy (1993), the goodness of a forecast is a function of both of these: the quality of a forecast, and its value for society. How is societal value determined?

This presentation will discuss two frameworks that are invoked most frequently in weather social science - behavioral nudging, and informed decision making - and outline their differences, and the importance of being clear about which we are choosing. It will then conclude with a deeper look at informed decision-making, since that goal has received specific attention in recent policy, and outline its components, assumptions, and the ways operational forecasters can make a difference in an informed decision framework. This includes creating high quality forecasts, but definitely does not stop there.