The last few years within the National Weather Service have seen significant changes brought about largely because of the agency's commitment to its Weather Ready Nation Road Map. Essential to the strategic vision is a partnership with social scientists who likewise are dedicated to offering insights into the weather warning process and helping operational meteorologists and product developers create warning messages that are more accurately interpreted by various publics served by the NWS. To accomplish this mission, social scientists have been consulted to evaluate messages, graphics, and other modes of communication; they have collaborated on research about perceptions of weather and behavioral trends during times of uncertainty; and, more recently, they have been included in service assessments initiated by the NWS to help determine the impacts of agency products on members of respective weather communities.
While significant steps have been taken to integrate social science methods, practices, and insights into NWS operations, many within the agency still have questions about exactly what social science is, what social scientists have to contribute, and how best to initiate collaborations. This panel What is Social Science and What is it Good For? will discuss various types of social science and offer insights from four social scientists who have been intimately involved with NWS and AMS partners in different and important ways.
Dr. Vankita Brown will discuss her role as a social scientist in the Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services at the National Weather Service. She will highlight various projects which have included social science approaches and perspectives - Service Assessment Teams, Service Assessment Survey Teams, Tsunami Warning Team, Customer Satisfaction Survey, Call-To-Action Teams, and Nationalization of Graphic Products Project. Having worked on several of these endeavors, Brown will examine both the challenges of implementing social science approaches into NWS culture and ideology, and explore ideas and opportunities for social science inclusion and integration.
Dr. Susan Jasko will discuss her experiences serving on two service assessment teams and focus primarily on issues about how agency structures and procedures intersect with the assessment process. Bringing to bear a communication and system theory perspective, she will highlight how the assessment functions within the agency, how it might be altered to enhance specific key outcomes, and how it might be utilized as a tool for leveraging desired changes in the field offices, regional headquarters, and NWS management. In addition, she will discuss ways the process of assessment can be re-imagined to enhance and reflect agency changes indicative of the evolution toward the vision of Weather Ready Nation.
Dr. Laura Myers will share her work on regional emergency planning and the inclusion of the weather enterprise in emergency planning. Dr. Myers has served as a social science expert with multiple Integrated Warning Teams (IWTs) of the NWS and has provided support for evaluations of the weather warning process. In these efforts, Dr. Myers has worked with the IWTs to develop new warning messaging content based on public perception results. Dr. Myers has also supported efforts to develop message dissemination tools to make sure warnings are reaching all impacted populations. Dr. Myers will talk about how social science experts can collaborate with the NWS and the Weather Ready Nation effort and how the NWS can work with these experts to pursue current Weather Ready Nation goals.
Jen Henderson, a Ph.D. student in Science and Technology Studies at Virginia Tech, will talk about her work at a local Weather Forecast Office where she is using ethnographic methods and discourse analysis to help map the tornado warning process as part of her dissertation work. Specifically, she is collaborating with the Meteorologist-In-Charge to learn more about the historical, political, and socio-technical influences that have lead to the construction, dissemination, and interpretation of the tornado warning among multiple constituents. Her plan is to relate these findings to policies such as the Weather Ready Nation Road Map.
This panel complements topics relevant to the Eighth Symposium on Policy and Socio-Economic Research at the AMS Annual Meeting, specifically the session titled Social Science for a Weather-Ready Nation. This workshop will highlight potential collaboration opportunities with NWS partners and underscore methods and practices from the social sciences that are used to address societal problems important to the meteorological community.
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