Skip to main content
Log in

Expert judgment and climate forecasting: A methodological critique of “climate change to the year 2000”

  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The National Defense University's study of climate change to the year 2000 was based largely on the judgments of the members of two expert panels. Although the study has been widely distributed and apparently read by policy makers in the U.S. and abroad, the method of eliciting and analyzing expert judgment has not been critically reviewed. This paper uses the literature on judgment and subjective probability to evaluate the expert judgment methods used in the study.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Armstrong, J. Scott: 1978, Long-Range Forecasting: From Crystal Ball to Computer, Wiley, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, L. R.: 1970, Seeds of Change, Praeger, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clemen, R. T. and Winkler, R. L.: 1983, ‘Limits for the Precision and Value of Information from Dependent Sources’, Unpublished manuscript, University of Indiana, Bloomington, Indiana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Congressional Research Service: 1976, A Primer on Climatic Variation and Change, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Council on Environmental Quality: 1980, ‘The Global 2000 Report to the President: Entering the Twenty-First Century’, Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daan, H. and Murphy, A. H.: 1982, ‘Subjective Probability Forecasting in The Netherlands: Some Operational and Experimental Results’, Meteorol. Rund. 35, 99–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Einhorn, H. J. and Hogarth, R. M.: 1982, ‘Prediction, Diagnosis, and Causal Thinking in Forecasting’, Journal of Forecasting 1, 23–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Einhorn, H. J. and Hogarth, R. M.: 1981, ‘Behavioral Decision Theory: Processes of Judgment and Choice’, Annual Review of Psychology 32, 53–88.

    Google Scholar 

  • Einhorn, H. J., Hogarth, R. M., and Klempner, E.: 1977, ‘Quality of Group Judgment’, Psychological Bulletin 84, 158–172.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischer, G. W.: 1981, ‘When Oracles Fail - A Comparison of Four Procedures for Aggregating Subjective Probability Forecasts’, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 28, 96–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischhoff, B.: 1982, lsDebiasing’, in D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A. Tversky (eds.) Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Cambridge University Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischhoff, B. and MacGregor, D.: 1982, ‘Subjective Confidence in Forecasts’, Journal of Forecasting 1, 155–172.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glantz, M. H., Robinson, J., and Krenz, M.: 1982, ‘Improving the Science of Climate-Related Impact Studies: A Review of Past Experience’, in William Clark (ed.), Carbon Dioxide Review: 1982, Oxford University Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guilford, J. P.: 1954, Psychometric Methods, McGraw Hill, New York, p. 25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hammond, K. R., Anderson, B. F., Sutherland, J., and Marvin, B.: 1982, ‘Improving Scientists’ Judgments of Risk, University of Colorado at Boulder, Center for Research on Judgment and Policy, Report No. 239.

  • Hammond, K. R., McClelland, G. H., and Mumpower, J.: 1980, Human Judgment and Decision Making: Theories, Methods and Procedures, Praeger, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hammond, K. R., Rohrbaugh, J., Mumpower, J., and Adelman, L.: 1977, ‘Social Judgment Theory: Applications in Policy Formation’, in M. F. Kaplan and S. Schwartz (eds.), Human Judgment and Decision Processes in Applied Settings, Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hammond, K. R., Stewart, T. R., Brehmer, B., and Steinmann, D. O.: 1975, ‘Social Judgment Theory’, in M. F. Kaplan and S. Schwartz (eds.), Human Judgment and Decision Processes, Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogarth, R. M.: 1980, Judgment and Choice: The Psychology of Decision, Wiley, Chichester, England.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogarth, R. M.: 1977, ‘Methods for Aggregating Opinions’, in H. Jungermann and G. de Zeeuw (eds.), Decision Making and Change in Human Affairs, D. Reidel Publ. Co., Dordrecht, Holland, pp. 231–255.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogarth, R. M.: 1975, ‘Cognitive Processes and the Assessment of Subjective Probability Distributions’, J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 70, 271–289.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hopkins, R. F. and Puchala, D. J. (eds.): 1978, The Global Political Economy of Food, U. of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, p. 2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koriat, A., Lichtenstein, S., and Fischhoff, B.: 1980, ‘Reasons for Confidence’, J. Experimental Psych.: Human Learning and Memory 6, 107–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kraemer, R. S.: 1978, ‘Meeting Reviews: Session on Climatic Futures at the Annual Meeting of the AAAS, 17 February, 1978’, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 59(7), 822–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lichtenstein, S., Fischhoff, B., and Phillips, E. D.: 1982, ‘Calibration of Probabilities: The State of the Art to 1980’, in D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A. Tversky (eds.), Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Cambridge University Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linstone, H. A. and Turoff, M.: 1975, The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKay, G. A. and Williams, G. D. V.: 1982, ‘Crop Yields and Climate Change to the Year 2000, Volume I (Book Review)’, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 63, 427.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, A. H. and Brown, B. G.: 1984, ‘A Comparative Evaluation of Objective and Subjective Weather Forecasts in the United States’, Journal of Forecasting 3.

  • Murphy, A. H. and Daan, H.: 1984, ‘Impacts of Feedback and Experience on the Quality of Subjective Probability Forecasts: Comparison of Results from the First and Second Years of the Zierikzee Experiment’, Monthly Weather Rev. 112, 413–423.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, A. H. and Winkler, R. L.: 1974, ‘Credible Interval Temperature Forecasting: Some Experimental Results’, Monthly Weather Rev. 102, 784–794.

    Google Scholar 

  • National Academy of Sciences: 1975, Environmental Impact of Stratospheric Flight. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • NDU: 1983, The World Grain Economy and Climate Change to the Year 2000: Implications for Policy. National Defense University Press, Washington, D.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • NDU: 1980, Crop Yields and Climate Change to the Year 2000, National Defense University, Washington, D.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • NDU: 1978, Climate Change to the Year 2000, National Defense University, Washington, D.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newell, A. and Simon, H. A.: 1972, Human Problem Solving, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nunnally, J. C: 1978, Psychometric Theory, 2nd ed., McGraw Hill, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raiffa, H.; 1968, Decision Analysis: Introductory Lectures on Choices under Uncertainty, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Reading, Massachusetts.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rohrbaugh, J.: 1979, ‘Improving the Quality of Group Judgment: Social Judgment Analysis and the Delphi Technique’, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 24, 73–92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sackman, H.: 1975, Delphi Critique, D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington, Mass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schuman, H. and Presser, S.: 1981, Question, and Answers in Attitude Surveys. Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Science News: 1978, ‘The 25-Year Forecast: Group Prediction’, 113(8), 116.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seaver, D. A.: 1976, ‘Assessment of Group Preferences and Group Uncertainty for Decision Making’, Technical Report SSRI 76–4, Social Science Research Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seaver, D. A., von Winterfeldt, D., and Edwards, W.: 1978, ‘Eliciting Subjective Probability Distributions on Continuous Varibales’, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 21, 379–391.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sellers, W. D.: 1979, ‘Climate Change to the Year 2000: A Book Review’, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 60(6), 686.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slovic, P., Fischhoff, B., and Lichtenstein, S.: 1977, ‘Behavioral Decision Theory’, Annual Review of Psychology 28, 1–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slovic, P. and Lichtenstein, S.: 1971, ‘Comparison of Bayesian and Regression Approaches to the Study of Information Processing in Judgment’, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 6, 649–744.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spetzler, C. S. and Stael von Holstein, C.-A.S.: 1975, ‘Probability Encoding in Decision Analysis’, Management Sci. 22, 340–358.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart, T. R.: 1984, ‘Judgment and Forecasting: Methodological Implications of Judgment Research’. Paper prepared for the Conference on Forecasting in the Social and Natural Sciences, Boulder, CO, June 10–13.

  • Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D.: 1981, ‘The Framing of Decisions and the Rationality of Choice’, Science 211, 453–458.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D.: 1974, ‘Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’, Science 185, 1124–1131.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D.: 1971, ‘The Belief in the Law of Small Numbers’, Psychological Bulletin 76, 105–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • U.N. FAO: 1979, ‘Scanning the Future for Climate Change’, CERES 12, 7.

    Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Central Intelligence Agency: 1974, A Study of Climatological Research as It Pertains to Intelligence Problems, Document Expediting Project, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallsten, T.S. and Budescu, D.V.: 1983, ‘Encoding Subjective Probabilities: A Psychological and Psychometric Review’, Management Science 29, 151–173.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winkler, R.L.: 1968, ‘The Consensus of Subjective Probability Distributions’, Management Science B 15, 61–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winkler, R. L. and Murphy, A.H.: 1979, ‘The Use of Probabilities in Forecasts of Maximum and Minimum Temperatures’, Meteorological Magazine 108, 317–329.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Stewart, T.R., Glantz, M.H. Expert judgment and climate forecasting: A methodological critique of “climate change to the year 2000”. Climatic Change 7, 159–183 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00140504

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00140504

Keywords

Navigation