Crafting the Climate Story: Best Practices in Climate Communication for Meteorologists

Proposed session: 1 hour

Over the past decade, the science and practice of climate change communication by climate scientists and broadcast meteorologists have evolved rapidly. The practice of climate communication that previously was driven largely by each communicator’s intuition, or professional judgement, can now be informed--indeed, is increasingly being informed--by scientific investigations into public opinion, risk perceptions, motivated reasoning, message framing and a range of other information processing and communication processes. In this session we will: (1) provide an overview of how Americans currently think and feel about climate change; (2) present some actionable insights from the science of climate communication; and (3) illustrate how these insights are being put into practice by a range of AMS members who excel as climate communicators (e.g., Katharine Hayhoe, Marshall Shepard, Scott Denning, John Morales). The session will also implement a key insight from the science of informal science education--that adults learn best through interaction--by including interactive polling where all attendees will have the opportunity to test their knowledge of climate communication best practices. Lastly, the editor of Columbia Journalism Review recently called out “weathercasters” as the one bright spot on climate reporting in American news media; the session will end with a brief overview of how broadcast meteorologists have earned this notable accolade.

Proposed Structure of the Session

This session will use a combination of informational presentations (e.g., an overview of public opinion about climate change), live demonstrations of climate communication by broadcast meteorologists, and interactive polling structured around an innovative pedagogical method called misconception-based learning.