Susan Joslyn and Buz Hunt: Decision Making in Weather Forecasting

Abstract

This talk will provide an overview of a new project studying decision making in weather forecasting. Although modern day weather forecasting is based on complex numerical models, their predictions do not always agree, due to differences in inputs and assumptions. Each forecast is associated with a degree uncertainty. Forecasters combine model predictions with other information, such as current conditions and climactic trends, to produce a forecast. Ideally model uncertainty would be included in the decision process, although the current procedures tend to neglect this factor. The authors are part of a multidisciplinary team of faculty from the Statistics, Sociology, Atmospheric Sciences, Psychology and Applied Physics that has been assembled to develop better ways to assess and present model uncertainty to weather forecasters. Our focus is on military weather forecasters who are already overwhelmed by a large volume of information and must make decisions rapidly. As the psychologists on the team, we will determine the best method by which to communicate uncertainty to military forecasters. The first stage of the process is to determine how decisions are made in this domain and to determine the information sources upon which decisions are currently based. We will present preliminary results from observations and verbal protocol analyses that lay the groundwork for this 5-year project.