Approaches to communicating climatic uncertainties with decision-makers

There is inherent uncertainty about how the climate will change into the future, yet projections from climate models, as well as trends and analyses from historical climate data, can provide informative and actionable information relevant to diverse decision-making contexts. At present decision-makers are often wary of climate information as it is perceived to be uncertain. In order to support the development of context relevant and easy to use climate information, AMMA-2050 and FRACTAL integrate a range of stakeholder engagement activities and communication formats into their research programmes. These include multi-stakeholder meetings and workshops of various formats, and printed and digital media including publications, slide decks, videos, infographics, and webinars. This guide focuses on two specific types of communication formats: presentation of traditional scientific data visuals using slide-sets (drawing on AMMA-2050’s work), and climate risk narratives or stories about possible futures, co-produced between stakeholders and researchers (drawing on FRACTAL’s work).