Improving the interactions between users and producers of climate forecasts

Operational seasonal climate forecasts, based initially just on the El Niño - Southern Oscillation but more recently on near-global patterns of sea surface temperatures, have been issued in Australia for well over a decade. Considerable efforts have been made, since the forecasts were first issued, to ensure that communication between forecast producers and users is effective in ensuring that the forecasts are used appropriately. Despite these efforts our experiences during the 1997/98 El Niño demonstrated that further work was needed, to link forecast producers and users more effectively. We have conducted extensive studies of how users interpret (or mis-interpret or misuse) forecast information, how problems arise through communication of climate information through the media, and how to ensure that users can use the forecasts in their decision-making. These studies have resulted in many lessons about how to improve the interactions between users and producers of climate information. The results of these recently-published studies will be summarised, and their lessons for the construction of climate forecast systems will be presented.