Day: August 24, 2024

Should You Use the Farmer’s Almanac Winter Forecast? — Peter Goble (@ColoradoClimate Center)

Click the link to read the blog post on the Colorado Climate blog (Peter Goble):

August 23, 2024

The Farmer’s Almanac released their official winter forecast map for winter 2024-2025, and in the meteorological community this means… nothing. Despite the consistent national and local media attention the Farmer’s Almanac gets year-after-year, and assertions about its fabled accuracy, it is not a tool that the scientific community uses or endorses.  

Seasonal forecasting is a very difficult problem, and the forecasts are often wrong, sometimes even verifying worse than a random guess, so why wouldn’t weather forecasters embrace the Farmer’s Almanac? There are two major reasons: 1. The Farmer’s Almanac’s seasonal forecasting methods are not transparent, and 2. The Farmer’s Almanac is not skillful.  

Let’s start with the lack of transparency: There is no peer reviewed scientific literature backing the Farmer’s Almanac’s seasonal forecasting methods. In fact, their methods aren’t even disclosed. This from farmersalmanac.com: “Over the years, various methods have been used to make the Farmers’ Almanac predictions, including studying sunspot cycles, solar activity, tidal forces, and even the reversal of winds in the stratosphere over the equator.” They add: “The Moon acts as a “meteorological swizzle stick,” occasionally stirring up atmospheric disturbances with its cyclical and predictable movements…” As a climate scientist, this description of methods does not instill me with confidence. While we know that sunspot cycles, and the quasi-biennial oscillation (reversal of winds in the stratosphere over the equator) do influence seasonal weather to some degree, there is no mention of some of the largest tools used by in seasonal forecasting: the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and trends associated with climate change. As for the moon being a “meteorological swizzle stick,” yes, the moon actually does impact the weather. The atmosphere is a fluid just like the ocean, and a full moon stretches the atmosphere out slightly much like the ocean tides. This effect has been shown to raise precipitation rates, but only by 1-2%. Furthermore, this is a daily cycle. Whether the moon is new or full, we face the moon once/day. How can a daily cycle, which is always present, be used to make a forecast more accurate for the whole winter? I would ask the Farmer’s Almanac forecaster my questions personally, but the forecaster (yes, it’s apparently just one person, not a team) who goes by the pseudonym Caleb Weatherbee, remains anonymous so he is not “hassled.” I believe a seasonal forecaster should be able to defend their forecasting methods against the scruples of scientific peer review and public comment. 

What about accuracy? The average customer probably will not care that the Farmer’s Almanac methods are opaque so long as the forecasts are accurate. A 2010 Weatherwise study from the University of Illinois used a list of 32 cities to test the accuracy of the Farmer’s Almanac and found that it was just under 52% accurate; not much better than a coin flip. Yet the tool’s popularity persists. Why? Have the forecasts improved? Are they equal to, or better than, the seasonal forecasts climatologists and meteorologists look at? For this blog, we evaluate the skill of the Farmer’s Almanac winter outlooks relative to the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center CPC seasonal outlooks over the last five years (winter 2019-2020 through winter 2023-2024). The current CPC winter forecast is shown below:  

The data: We used 4km resolution Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes (PRISM) modeled climate data from across the contiguous United States. PRISM leverages observations from trusted weather networks (such as the National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Program) and uses physically derived relationships between meteorological variables and elevations/slope angles to create beautiful, spatially complete reanalyses of our weather. We averaged December-February PRISM temperatures and precipitation over the regions shown in the Farmer’s Almanac above. This is our forecast verification dataset. A description of which states are in which region is available in the following table (bear in mind that the Farmer’s Almanac drew these regions, not me. I would never consider Tennessee part of the “Great Lakes” region):  

Selecting Forecasts for Evaluation: One of the problems with testing the skill of the Farmer’s Almanac forecasts is that most of the language is subjective. For example, the Farmer’s Almanac forecast for winter 2022-2023 in the North-Central region was “Hibernation Zone. Glacial, Snow-Filled.” How does one evaluate this forecast? Is a normal, or even above normal, winter in the north-central United States not glacial and snow-filled? Because of this we will only evaluate skill in regions where the Farmer’s Almanac declares that temperature or precipitation will be below, near, or above normal. For the sake of consistency, we will only evaluate the Climate Prediction Center in the same number of regions for the same variables. For instance, if the Farmer’s Almanac makes testable claims in two regions for temperature, and one for precipitation, we will use the CPC maps to do the same, testing their two most confident regional temperature predictions, and single most confident precipitation predictions.  

Testing skill: It is common for seasonal forecasts to be made using terciles. A tercile represents one third of the probability distribution of a dataset. The lower tercile represents below normal conditions, the middle tercile represents near normal conditions, and the upper tercile represents above normal conditions. For example, if winter temperatures were colder than in 80% of years in the historical record, that would be in the lower tercile (since in over two thirds of years temperatures were greater). In this study we use the following scoring matrix to judge a winter forecast:    

Below normal will be defined as temperatures or precipitation within (or below) the lower third of the 1991-2020 climate normals. Above normal is defined as temperatures or precipitation within (or above) the upper third of the 1991-2020 climate normals distribution for a region. Near normal is defined as the middle tercile in the 1991-2020 PRISM climate normals. For example, if the Farmer’s Almanac forecasts “normal temperatures” for the Pacific Northwest Region in winter 2022, and the PRISM averaged December-February temperatures fall within the 1991-2020 middle tercile range, that forecast is worth +2 points. If it is outside of the middle tercile range, it is worth –1. Upper and lower tercile forecasts work differently: they are worth more points if correct (because the forecaster must be confident in a deviation from normal) but will burn the forecaster if they miss by a wide margin. An upper or lower tercile forecast that is correct is worth +3, but if the opposite tercile verifies, it is –3. Note that the expected value for a lower, middle, or upper tercile forecast is zero if forecasting randomly. 

Complications: There are a few problems with these methods that would need to be examined more closely to submit this kind of comparison to peer review: 1. Unlike CPC, the Farmer’s Almanac forecasts, even when calling for below, near, or above normal, make no mention of terciles. The Farmer’s Almanac forecaster may tailor their seasonal forecasts a bit differently if apprised to the rules of our game. 2. It is also worth noting that the CPC forecasts are not deterministic, they are probabilistic. Each grid point is assigned a probability of below normal, near normal, and above normal temperature and precipitation. In this evaluation CPC forecasts are treated as deterministic. In some cases, a CPC forecast is treated as calling for “above normal” or “below normal” temperature or precipitation when CPC is only 40-50% confident in above (or below) the upper (or lower) tercile. 3. The CPC does not use the climate divisions drawn in the Farmer’s Almanac, or any divisions for that matter; it is a gridded product. Determining the regions in which CPC is most confident in the winter forecast sometimes takes some creative eyeballing. Like the Farmer’s Almanac, the CPC forecast team would probably tailor their winter forecasts differently if apprised to the rules of the game. With all the methodology and caveats finally out of the way, let’s play! 

2019-2020: Year number one of our Farmer’s Almanac vs Climate Prediction Center skill challenge is winter (December-February) 2019-2020. If we look at the Farmer’s Almanac forecast, we see a few subjective yet colorful descriptions of winter: “frozen, snowy,” “brisk & wet,” “frosty, wet & white.” These descriptions generally describe the winter climates of the Great Lakes, Southeast, and Atlantic Regions of the United States respectively. However, we do see three claims that we can test using PRISM temperature and precipitation data: “Normal Precipitation” in the Pacific Northwest, “Normal Precipitation” in the Southwest, and “Average Precipitation” in the South-Central Region. We will not distinguish between “normal” and “average” here. For each of these regions, a December-February precipitation value in the middle tercile range of the 1991-2020 normals will be scored as +2, and an outer-tercile value will be scored as –1. 

The 2019-2020 Pacific Northwest Region-average December-February precipitation value of 14.26” is ever-so-close to the inner tercile range (11.15-14.16”), but no cigar. -1. The southwest region verified much drier than normal. -1 again. However, the South-Central region value of 7.87” barely squeezes into the inner tercile range of 6.33-7.88”. +2. It’s a wash for an annual score of zero.  

All three of the Farmer’s Almanac’s testable claims were precipitation forecasts. Per our methods above, we will now score the CPC’s three most confident regional precipitation forecasts for December-February 2019-2020. These include above normal precipitation over the North-Central and Great Lakes Regions, and below normal precipitation over the Southwest Region.  

The CPC starts strong in winter 2019-2020 with a clean sweep. PRISM-averaged, North-Central Region Precipitation verifies across the region at 3.47”, which, believe it or not, is above the 67th percentile value of 3.22”. This region is so cold in winter that high precipitation events are rare. The Great Lakes Region value comes in at 11.17”, comfortably eclipsing the 67th percentile of 9.30”. The Southwest Region, as stated earlier, was dry, which also matched the CPC forecast. 

At the end of one round, the scoreboard reads CPC: 9, Farmer’s Almanac: 0 with the CPC achieving the maximum possible score for the round. Is hope lost for the Farmer’s Almanac already? With four of five years remaining, I doubt it!

2020-2021: It is a new year and new battle for the Farmer’s Almanac, who have again submitted a forecast with top-notch descriptive language. This forecast includes details about the interregional and intertemporal variation of temperature and precipitation: “Wet Coastal Regions, Snowy Inland” for the Southwest, and “Temperamental! Wild swings from mild to tranquil to cold & wintery” for the South-Central Region. Within this forecast lies two testable claims: “Normal Temps” for the Southwest and “Seasonably Cold” for the… Mid-Atlantic? This region is not used in all years. We will create an ad-hoc region from Virginia up though Pennsylvania that runs from West Virginia to the Atlantic Coast to score this. Indeed, both the Southwest and Mid-Atlantic Regions had near normal winter temperatures, giving the Farmer’s Almanac a score of +4 for the year. 

How about the CPC? Given our stated methods, this time, we must test their two most confident regional temperature forecasts. This includes an increased chance of above normal temperatures for the Southwest and South-Central Regions. The Southwest saw near-normal winter temperatures. The Farmer’s Almanac called it. The CPC did not. Does it get better for the CPC from here? Oh no! The CPC’s call for increased chances of a warmer than normal winter in the South-Central Region will not amuse Texans, who had disastrous, and sometimes deadly, impacts from a horrible cold snap in February 2021, which saw millions of Americans without power. This earns the CPC an emphatic –3. 

At the end of two rounds the Farmer’s Almanac has nearly drawn even, trailing by a manageable deficit of 6-4. 

2021-2022: The 2021-2022 winter comes with greater potential for the tide to shift in either direction. The Farmer’s Almanac has submitted a seasonal forecast with six testable claims: three for temperature, and three for precipitation. Descriptive language still abounds, calling for “numb’s the word, just shoveling along” in the North-Central Region. We also have calls for normal, or typical, temperature and precipitation in the Pacific Northwest and Southwest Regions, near normal precipitation in the South-Central Region, and “typical winter chill” in the Northeast Region. The Northeast Region did see “typical winter chill,” with an average temperature of 25.3 °F, comfortably inside the middle tercile. I did want to subtract points for the addition of “stormy Jan, tranquil Feb.” as this was not even close to true. February was easily the coldest month of the winter in New England in 2022. I’ll award credit for the forecast of average winter temperatures, even if the temporal variability was plainly wrong. +2. The Farmer’s Almanac correctly called near-normal winter temperatures in the Pacific Northwest, but precipitation verified just outside of the inner tercile: 11.10” (the 33rd percentile is 11.15”). The Almanac forecast was ugly down south. It called for near normal temperatures and precipitation for the Southwest, and near normal precipitation for the South-Central Region. Both regions were significantly warmer and drier than normal. All tallied, it’s a wash. The Farmer’s Almanac made six testable claims and scored a net zero points. 

We evaluated the CPC’s three most confident regional forecasts for temperature and precipitation. The region-averaged December-February temperatures were 45.7 °F for the South-Central Region and 49.7 °F for the Southeast Region. These marks were comfortably in the upper tercile of the 1991-2020 distribution and net the CPC +6 points. The call for an increased probability of above normal temperatures in New England did not pan out, again thanks to that bone-chilling February. Zero points. The CPC also made a smart call in the Great Lakes, forecasting an increased probability of above normal precipitation, likely driven by La Niña conditions. The region average of 9.82” did exceed the 67th percentile of 9.30”. It was a wash out west. The CPC faced a tough break as the increased probability of above normal precipitation in the Pacific Northwest was followed by lower tercile precipitation, -3 points. However, the forecast of an increased probability of below normal precipitation in the southwest did pan out. The December-January value of 4.31” was below normal, netting +3. 

Three years of data and 11 total testable claims was enough for the CPC to begin to pull away from the Farmer’s Almanac with cumulative scores of +15 for the CPC, and +4 for the Farmer’s Almanac. 

2022-2023: The winter 2022-2023 season brought the third year in a row of La Niña conditions. The prevailing evidence suggests that this is associated with wetter than normal conditions over the northern United States, especially the Great Lakes Region, and drier than normal conditions over the south and southwestern United States. Much warmer than normal Atlantic Ocean temperatures also lent confidence, at least for the CPC, that a warmer than normal winter could occur up and down the eastern seaboard.  

The Farmer’s Almanac forecast featured three testable claims this winter including “normal precipitation” for the Pacific Northwest, “drier than normal” for the Southwest, and “normal precipitation” for the South-Central Region. Other regional forecasts, such as “Hibernation Zone, Glacial, Snow-Filled” for the North-Central Region, and “Significant Shivers, Slushy, Icy, Snowy” for the Northeast Region unfortunately could not be scored. 

The Farmer’s Almanac net +1 points in 2023, dropping back down to a cumulative score of just +2. “Normal precipitation” was the correct forecast for the Pacific Northwest and South-Central Regions. The call for “drier than normal” in the Southwest was terrible as much of the Sierra Nevadas and western Rocky Mountains received near-to-record high snowpack in winter 2023. One might also argue that “unreasonably cold” was not a good forecast for the Great Lakes Region, which had one of the mildest winters on record. However, perhaps it is fair to counter that winter in the Great Lakes Region is always “unreasonably cold.” 

The Climate Prediction Center net another +3 points in winter 2022-2023 with their three most confident regional precipitation predictions. The Great Lakes Region again verified with above normal precipitation at 9.55″ averaged across the region. The CPC forecast called for an increased probability of below normal precipitaiton in the South-Central and Southeastern Regions. Both of these regions ended up with near normal precipitation, and scored 0 points.

Neither the Farmer’s Almanac nor the CPC had a particularly strong showing in 2022-2023, netting only +1 and +3. After four years, the cumulative scores are +18 for the CPC and +5 for the Farmer’s Almanac. With just one year left in our forecast competition, it would take a crystal ball for the Farmer’s Almanac to make up that kind of a deficit. 

2023-2024: The Farmer’s Almanac only floundered in the final year of competition, calling for ”unseasonably cold” conditions in the South-Central Region (it was warmer than normal: -3) and ”seasonably cold” conditions in the Pacific Northwest (also warmer than normal: -1).  

Winter 2023-2024 brought El Niño conditions for the first time in the five-year competition. Meanwhile, Atlantic Ocean temperature anomalies remained high. The CPC used these facts in tandem to confidently call for increased chances of above normal temperatures across the northern United States and above normal precipitation in the southeastern United States. CPC had a very good year, and had the Farmer’s Almanac made more testable claims about temperature and precipitation, it could have scored as high as +12 or +15. However, the call for increased chances of above normal temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and Northeast both verified, and can be counted using our methodology above for an additional +6. 

All things considered, the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center blew out the Farmer’s Almanac over our last five years of winter temperature and precipitation predictions. The CPC came away with a final score of +24, and the Farmer’s Almanac came away with a score of +1 where the expected value for both entities using random number generation would be 0.  

The CPC shined in the Great Lakes Region, netting +9 points in over five years. Some of the CPC’s totals could have been higher if we were not enforcing that the CPC only be evaluated on the same number of regional forecasts/year as the Farmer’s Almanac. The CPC did not shine everywhere. The CPC net zeros points in the Pacific Northwest, which was worse than the Farmer’s Almanac (+3), and zeros points in both the South-Central and Northeast Regions (tied with the Farmer’s Almanac). When we look at individual regions, five years is a small sample size, so I would not recommend Seattle residents pick up this year’s copy of The Almanac today. The North-Central Region was also tricky for the CPC because it is a large, diverse region, and seasonal forecasts rarely leaned confidently one way or the other across the region. In some cases, there was an increased probability of above normal temperatures in the south end of the region, and below normal temperatures in the northern end of the region, or vice versa.  

The CPC’s score of +24 was greater than that of over 99% of 10000 simulations using random number generation, so we can say with confidence that the CPC is better at forecasting winter temperature and precipitation than random forecasting. The Farmer’s Almanac score was only better than about 55% of 10000 random number generation simulations. We cannot reject the hypothesis that the Farmer’s Almanac makes winter forecasts equivalent in skill to picking randomly. This is the outcome I expected given the tools and resources these two entities use to make their predictions.  

Seasonal forecasting is an ongoing challenge in the scientific community. For many stakeholders, significantly better than random chance is simply not good enough. More precision is often needed for stakeholders to make changes to their operations based on a forecast (e.g. farmers planting different crops, ski resorts extending snow making operations). I still understand why the Farmer’s Almanac is popular. It is entertaining. However, if you are considering making decisions based on a seasonal forecast that have any real economic consequence, I strongly suggest deferring to experts like the Climate Prediction Center. 

Women and other changes in water: Women in water? Younger people with voices? Doug Kemper has seen those and other changes during his 40 years in Colorado water — Allen Best (@BigPivots)

Doug Kemper near his home in Denver. Photo/Jill PIatt Kemper

Click the link to read the article on the Big Pivots website (Allen Best):

August 19, 2024

Women will be among the attendees at the Colorado Water Congress annual summer conference this week, and relatively speaking, lots of them.

It wasn’t always so, says Doug Kemper, the executive director for the organization, Colorado’s largest group dedicated to convening discussions about water issues.

Kemper, who is moving on in September after 20 years managing the Water Congress, recalls that when he got involved in Colorado water matters about 40 years ago, water meetings were very different. Young people were expected to sit in the back and listen, to pay their dues.

“It wasn’t 100%, but the feeling was that you sit in the back and go along for the ride.”

Water Congress – and by extension all water matters in Colorado – have become more intergenerational. And more diverse in gender.

“You see a much higher percentage of women, and that just makes for a better (water) community. We are not where we need to be yet. But those are the two big changes in the makeup of the water community in the last 20 to 30 years, and especially in the last 10.”

Also evident, at least in the agenda for Water Congress conferences in the last few years, has been the inclusion of native voices – including native women. This summer’s conference in Colorado Springs is no exception. In addition to sessions devoted to agriculture, the Colorado River and other topics, a half-hour is allotted to comments from representatives of both the Southern Ute and the Ute Mountain Ute tribes. Both speakers will be women.

And yet another change, which can also be seen in the agenda for Water Congress but elsewhere, too, is the proliferation of locally based watershed groups.

Kemper grew up primarily in Atlanta, and got his first college degree in Nashville before making his way to Colorado. Part of his motivation was the Colorado River. In a freshman class he had heard an explanation about the Colorado River Compact that stuck with him.

“We were being told in 1973 – 51 years ago — that out West, they have these seven states that share the Colorado River, and you know what they did? They have allocated more water from the river than there is river.”

Kemper remembers thinking, “What an interesting problem.”

Colorado River headwaters-marker. Photo credit: Allen Best/Big Pivots

Engineers are attracted  to problems, he says. “Not that I thought I had the solution. But I was fascinated by the problem.”

By late 1980, with a degree in environmental and water resources engineering, he was in Colorado. (He later picked up a master’s in civil engineering and water resources from the University of Colorado-Boulder).

At the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division, working on problems that are familiar yet today: ozone and particulates. But his greater interest was in water, and so he then worked for a variety of smaller consulting firms, working on everything from uranium mining to a job in Longmont that led to a deeper understanding of the conversion of water from agriculture to urban uses.

By 1986, he was ready for a new challenge. He got hired by Aurora and eventually became the manager of water resources, a position that he held until 2005, when he left to oversee the Colorado Water Congress.

Even when he started that position, Aurora was getting water from three different river basins in Colorado: The South Platte, the Arkansas and the Colorado.

Aurora, working with Colorado Springs, wanted to expand its diversions from the Colorado River Basin through a project in the Eagle River Basin, near Vail, called Homestake II.

The project, as proposed, was scuttled in the early 1990s, and it remains unclear whether any of that water will ever get diverted.

In 1992, Denver and other Front Range water providers also were sent reeling when the Environmental Protection Agency refused to issue a permit vital for a giant diversion project called Two Forks. It would have enlarged diversions from Summit County – and even from the Vail area.

From his Aurora Water office Kemper saw this and thought, “You know, we have to change our whole approach to water resources, at least in the cities.”

He obtained training, at Harvard and elsewhere, on collaborative problem solving and consent building. The task: learn how to work with people in a high-conflict environment. That, says Kemper, defined the rest of his career — although, he adds, the us vs. them that dominated water thinking 50 to 75 years ago may not be entirely gone. “We may be coming back to that now.”

Aurora has gone from a typical Front Range city, intent upon recreating landscapes from the Midwest or East, to one that aggressively promotes low-water landscapes. One educational tool is a demonstration garden near the municipal building. Photo/Allen Best

Aurora, founded in 1891, began as a farming community. The population rapidly expanded from 11,000 in 1950 to 222,000 in 1990, when Kemper was trying to figure out where the water was to come from. (It is now 400,000).

That was the era of big projects. Homestake and Two Forks were big, big projects. Their defeat forced cities to look at transfers from agriculture in Eastern Colorado and in smaller, more incremental ways.

Something else also happened: water conservation. Per capita water use in the 20th century had been rising, in the case of Aurora from 110 gallons daily per capita in the mid-1950s to 180 gallons per capita by the 1980s.

During the last several decades, that per-capita growth flattened and then declined. Aurora’s water use per capita is now at 115 gallons per day.

We have low-water toilets and washing machines, but also new urban landscapes. Cities are also rising vertical. The denser housing reduces the amount of water devoted to front yards and backyards.

Front Range cities have grown considerably but in the last 20 years without necessarily expanding water supplies.

Concurrent with this change has been a revised attitude about water supplies in Colorado. Early in Kemper’s career, it was a mantra that Colorado had at least a half-million acre-feet of water on the Western Slope to develop.

Any lingering thoughts in that regard have largely been shelved by the drought of the 21st century coupled with the aridification caused by a warming climate. Transmountain projects are expensive – and will the water even be there?

Long-time Western Slope water activist Ken Neubecker credits Northern Water with taking local and envirornmental concerns seriously, in its project to enlarge diversions from Windy Gap, but he also says that Doug Kemper was a pioneer in the art of listening. Photo/Norhern Water

Ken Neubecker credits Kemper with being a “pioneer in the changing of the guard.” He points to the attitudes of Denver Water in the 1960s and 1970s. He summarizes the attitude of at least one chief executive of Denver water during that time as being: “We have the water rights, we have more money than you, and we will see you in court.”

Neubecker, a Glenwood Springs-area resident who was a long-term representative for American Rivers, says that Denver retained elements of this attitude even after it lost in the Two Forks battle.

Other water diverters over time had become more willing to have discussions, to take the problems of the Western Slope interest and the environmental community more seriously. He credits in particular the wok of Northern Water.

Denver Water, though, didn’t entirely shift until another Western Slope resident, Jim Lochhead, was hired to oversee the agency.

Neubecker says that Kemper dramatically changed Water Congress. “Not overnight, but he shifted the organization’s thinking into greater inclusivity, the idea that ‘we’re in all in this together,’” he said. “And my position also changed,” he added, from “‘Hell no, not one more drop,’ to  ‘We can work together. And the Front Range can still get some of the water. It just depends upon how we do it.’”

As for Kemper’s plans after leaving the Water Congress in September, he says he has deliberately chosen to have none. “I have never taken more than two weeks off literally from the time I was in 10th grade, So, right now, I am trying not to have any commitments. I’ll just let things happen.”

Doug Kemper was surrounded by previous Wayne N. Aspinall recipients at the CWC Summer Conference, where he received the award.

If you want Americans to pay attention to climate change, just call it climate change

Escalating the language might work in a rally, but the general public isn’t as swayed by it, a new study show. Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

Wändi Bruine de Bruin, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and Gale Sinatra, University of Southern California

You probably have been hearing phrases like “climate crisis,” “climate emergency” or “climate justice” more often lately as people try to get across the urgent risks and consequences of climate change. The danger is real, but is using this language actually persuasive?

It turns out that Americans are more familiar with – and more concerned about – climate change and global warming than they are about climate crisis, climate emergency or climate justice, according to a recent survey we conducted with a nationally representative sample of 5,137 Americans.

Moreover, we found no evidence that the alternative terms increased people’s sense of urgency, willingness to support climate-friendly policies or willingness to act.

The familiar terms – climate change and global warming – did at least as well, and sometimes better, than climate crisis and climate emergency in eliciting concern, perceived urgency and willingness to act. Climate justice consistently tended to do worse, likely in part because it was the least familiar. The responses were similar among Republicans, Democrats and independents.

Just keep it simple

In our work as research psychologists, we have explored how Americans respond to the ways climate change is communicated and have uncovered a need to use straightforward language.

For example, people we interviewed for a study published in 2021 felt that climate experts were talking over their heads with terms like “adaptation,” “mitigation,” “sustainability” and “carbon-dioxide removal.” They wanted experts to use more familiar terms instead.

This inspired us to write a quick guide to climate jargon, published in The Conversation. Using everyday language makes information easier to understand, and even highly educated people tend to prefer it.

Yet, experts often use complex jargon because it is familiar to them, and they may not realize it is unfamiliar to others.

How the terms evolved

It has become common to talk about climate change and global warming as if they have the same meaning, but there are differences. Climate change refers to changes in the overall climate, while global warming refers specifically to rising temperatures.

A historical review found that, in the past, people were less likely to associate the term climate change with the idea that humans are actively warming the planet than they were with the term global warming. Perhaps this is why Democrats used to like the term global warming, while the popularization of the term climate change has been credited to Frank Luntz, an adviser to the George W. Bush administration.

Past surveys also found that Democrats used to think of global warming as being more serious than climate change, while Republicans thought of climate change as more serious than global warming. But according to a recent review, these partisan differences have now faded, and a majority of Republicans and Democrats tend to express concern about both terms.

Alternative terms such as climate crisis, climate emergency and climate justice have been used to emphasize other aspects of climate change and to try to raise concern. In 2019, the British newspaper The Guardian switched to using climate crisis and climate emergency because it wanted to convey urgency.

Activists use the term climate justice to draw attention to climate change as a human rights challenge: Low-income people around the world suffer the most from the effects of climate change, despite being the least responsible for causing it.

The takeaway: Avoid overheated language

Right now, the terms climate crisis, climate emergency or climate justice are less familiar and elicit less concern than climate change or global warming.

Even if these terms become more commonplace, there is no guarantee that they will heighten concern or inspire action. In fact, studies have suggested that phrases like climate crisis could backfire if they don’t resonate with people.

Our advice: Don’t make the mistake of using overheated language. Just stick with familiar terms that people understand – use global warming when referring to rising temperatures and climate change for overall changes in the climate.

Wändi Bruine de Bruin, Director of Behavioral Science & Policy Initiative, Schaeffer Institute of Public Policy & Government Service, USC Price School of Public Policy, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and Gale Sinatra, Professor of Education and Psychology, University of Southern California

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.