Abstract
Scientific uncertainties in climate change projections are generally addressed using an ensemble method, in which multiple models are used to generate climate projections. In the interest of transparent and honesty, such uncertainty should be communicated to the general public. Thus, it is important to investigate how such uncertainty should be communicated to the general public. This study explored three uncertainty representation formats—average, range, and multi-value—to investigate how each format affected the general public’s trust, perceived accuracy, perceived likelihood, and concern after acknowledging the presence of uncertainty in climate projections (i.e., the use of multi-model climate projections). We conducted a web survey of 2400 participants in Japan, in which we randomly assigned each participant to one of three formats by which climate projection uncertainty was presented. We then asked participants to rate trust, perceived accuracy, perceived likelihood, and concern regarding the climate projections. The multi-value format enhanced trust and perceived accuracy and partially increased perceived likelihood and concern regarding the climate projections compared to the average and range formats, regardless of participants’ numeracy and education level. This study suggests that the multi-value format might be effective for communicating multi-model projections and promoting public trust and support for climate polices.
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Data availability
All data and materials as well as STATA codes for statistical analysis are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
The mean age and the proportion of females in the population were obtained from the 2015 Census (Statistics Bureau, Ministry of International Affairs and Communications, Japan), university graduation ratio was obtained from the 2015 School Basic Survey (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan), and income was obtained from the 2016 Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan).
The five facts were (1) the trend of the average global temperature, (2) the trend of the average global sea level, (3) the change in the ice surface area of the North Pole, (4) current negative impacts of global warming, and (5) predicted damage if the global mean temperature increase exceeds 2 °C. To ensure that the participants read the explanations, we queried their awareness of the five stylized facts in the survey. The five facts are presented in Supplementary Material.
We confirmed this by interviewing participants of the pilot surveys—students of Kumamoto University—during the process of designing the survey.
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Funding
This work was conducted under the framework of the “Integrated Research Program for Advancing Climate Models” of the Program for Risk Information on Climate Change (TOUGOU Program) supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology-Japan (MEXT). This work was also supported by the JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Numbers 25780176, 17K03737).
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TF, MW, and HT contributed to the design and implementation of the research, TF and MW analyzed the results and TF wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Fujimi, T., Watanabe, M. & Tatano, H. Public trust, perceived accuracy, perceived likelihood, and concern on multi-model climate projections communicated with different formats . Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 26, 20 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-021-09950-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-021-09950-9