Climate.gov presentation in Room 8ABC (Austin Convention Center) as part of the AMS 2013 annual meeting by Viviane Silva, NOAA/NWS/CSD, Silver Spring, MD; and F. Nielpold

1. Climate.gov
A Brief Overview and Next Steps
Viviane Silva
NOAA Climate Services Division (NWS)
Frank Niepold
NOAA Climate Program Office (OAR)
First Symposium on the Weather and
Climate Enterprise
AMS Annual Meeting
January 9, 2013

2. Weather and climate influences almost every sector of society, & affects
up to 40 percent of the United States’ $10 trillion annual economy.
Marine Ecosystems Coastal Resilience Water Resources Extreme Events
Agriculture Energy Health Infrastructure
Source: NRC report (2003) “Satellite Observations of the Earth’s Environment: Accelerating the Transition of Research to Operations”)
2

3. Societal concern about the impacts of climate change is growing.
Societal concern about the impacts of climate change is growing.
People want easy and timely access to credible climate science data & information to
People want easy and timely access to credible climate science data & information to
help them make informed decisions affecting their lives and livelihoods.
help them make informed decisions affecting their lives and livelihoods.

4. Recent trends in public media use*
100
100
90
90
80
Percent of respondents using media
80
70
70
60
60 Network n
Local TV
50 CNN new
Cable new
Percent
50
40
40
Reads
Gets news
30
30
20
20
10
10
01992 1995 1996 1999 2002 2003 2006 20072010 2012
1993 1994 1997 2000
1993 1995 1998 20002001 2004 2005 2008
1998 20022004 2006
Year
*Miller, J.D. (2008): “Civic Scientific Literacy: The role of the media in the electronic era.”
White paper presented at AAAS Conference.
Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism (2011)

5. As the leading provider of climate, weather, & water information
to the nation and the world, NOAA is a logical source for citizens
to turn to for climate information.
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6. NOAA Climate.gov Goals
• to promote public understanding of climate science and awareness of ongoing
changes in climate conditions—globally and regionally;
• to highlight climate data, decision support tools, and professional development
and training opportunities designed to help improve the nation’s resilience; and
• to provide formal and informal educators reviewed educational resources and
professional development opportunities to incorporate climate science into their
work.
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7. www.climate.gov
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8. NOAA’s Climate Portal
http://www.climate.gov
The Climate.gov project began as a rapid prototyping effort that was first
published in February 2010 so that NOAA could gather feedback to
develop and evolve Climate.gov in user-driven ways.
Plans are to transition the portal from a prototype to an operational status
in early 2013.

9. Jon Miller’s model*
 U.S. President, Congressional members, OMB, &
Decision
Makers OSTP
 Nobel laureates, people who testify before
Science & Congress, heads of major research labs, NAS &
Technology Policy NRC Committees
Leaders
 Roughly 38 million American adults track
1 or more sci/tech topics; are quite
Science Attentive Publics knowledgeable; willing & able to engage
in policy-relevant discourse
 67 million adults understand
Science Interested Publics “scientific study”; 115 million
understand the structure &
purpose of an “experiment”.
The Residual Public  The remaining population
(unaware/uninterested) who is unaware &/or
uninterested in science &
technology.
*Miller, J.D. (2004): “Space Policy and Science Policy Leaders in the United States.” A white paper presented to
NASA Headquarters; on-line at http://esdepo.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/files/NASA_Leadership_Report.doc

10. NOAA’s four initial target
audience groupings
Decision
Makers
Science Policy
Leaders
NOAA Internal
Scientists & Data
Users
Public Media
Educators & Students
Museums, Science Centers, and After School
& Community-based Programs
Public Science Attentive Public, Citizen Scientists
Continuum Science Interested Publics
Residual Public
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11. New version: Structural Hierarchy
Browse
Search
&

12. Portal Sections provide information to a range of
audiences to enhance society's ability to understand
and plan and respond to climate variability and
change.
1. Audience (the who)
The prototype features four audience-
focused sections:
• News & Features for the public
• Climate Conditions for the public
• Data for scientists and data users
• Teaching Climate for educators &
students
• Decision Support for policy leaders
http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/Climate-Beliefs-September-2012.pdf

13. The who - start at the audience interface
and work backward into the agency
Public Continuum Educators Data-using Comms Policy Leaders
Target
Audiences
NOAA Virtual
Teams
NOAA Climate Science
NOAA Marine
NOAA Coastal Fisheries
National Weather
Service Climate
Science
Community

14. Recommended logical progression to lend focus
1. Audience (the who)
Why communicate with them? What’s
your desired outcome? Can be to:
2. Objective (the why)
• Inform — Raise awareness, increase
interest, change attitude (Passive
consumer)
• Engage — Dialogue, interact to
further raise awareness, increase
interest & change attitude (Active
consumer)
• Educate — Programs to increase
knowledge and skill, interpretation
(Student, Educator, Resource
developers, Leadership)
• Implement — Participation, R&D,
Decision support (Designers & Decision
14
Makers)

15. Recommended logical progression to lend focus
1. Audience (the who)
What impression or information or
2. Objective (the why) knowledge or skills do you want to
convey? Messages can be crafted to:
3. Message (the what) • inform &/or educate about the state of
the science and build capacity
• report new science results
• announce new data products &
services
• address societal implications and
concerns, etc.
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16. Recommended logical progression to lend focus
1. Audience (the who)
Successful, effective message delivery
2. Objective (the why) hinges on its compatibility with:
3. Message (the what) • an audience’s interests in it;
4. Process & medium • their needs for it;
(the how)
• their capacity to understand it;
• where / how they typically seek it,
etc.
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17. Climate.gov Survey Score = 3.63
(scale of 1 to 5, n=525) based on 5 core questions common to all target
audiences that measure functionality and quality of relationships
1) Satisfaction (based on reasons for visiting),
2) ease of navigation,
3) likelihood of recommending,
4) search engine, and
5) response confidence level
72.6
100 point scale

18. NOAA’s Climate Portal
http://www.climate.gov
The NCS Portal Prototype
provides a well-integrated,
online presentation of NOAA’s
climate data & services.
The prototype features four
audience-focused sections:
• ClimateWatch for the public
• Data & Services for scientists
and data users
• Understanding Climate for
policy leaders
• Education for educators &
students
The Dashboard is a data-
driven synoptic overview of the
state of the global climate
system.
Past Weather allows users to
easily retrieve weather data for
any given location & date.

19. NOAA’s New ClimateWatch Magazine (Soon to be “News &
Features”)
An online magazine written and designed
in a popular style. Goal is to grow an
attentive public to NOAA & climate.
Contains 3 types of content:
• Articles and stories
• Images with captions & annotations
• Videos with scientists’ commentaries
Features social media tools for
subscriptions & RSS feeds, content rating,
forward to a friend, and forms for facilitated
feedback.

20. NOAA’s Climate.gov Teaching Climate
Redesign and Expansion
http://www.climate.gov
The NOAA Climate Portal’s
Teaching Climate section
provides a syndication of the
CLEAN collection (cleanet.org)
with the other section content
The section features educator-
focused sections:
• Teaching Climate Literacy
provide educators detailed
discussions and strategies
• Curriculum Maps of Climate
Concepts for grades 3-5 to 9-
12
• Professional Development
Resources and Opportunities
• Reviewed Educational
Resources on Climate and
Energy topics from the CLEAN
Collection

21. Plans for new ‘Climate Conditions’ section
 Public-friendly digest
of recent & near-future
climate conditions.
 Initial emphasis on
‘mature’ products of
high public interest &
relevance
 Will provide
extensible maps &
trends with links to
source providers.
 Will give entré e to
subject experts to
provide value-added
interpretation.

22. Plans for new ‘Decision
Support’ section
Peer-reviewed resources for policy
leaders & decision makers to help them
manage their climate-related risks &
opportunities
Content sortable by these
categories:
- Society & Environment (i.e., sectors)
- Topics
- Regions
- Agencies & Organizations
Content types:
- Reports & Assessments
- Decision Support Tools
- Datasets
- Fact Sheets & Presentations
- Professional Development Opportunities

23. NOAA’s Climate.gov Data
Section Redesign and
Expansion
Content sortable by these
categories:
- Global Maps
- Regional Maps
- United States Maps
- Global Climate Dashboard
Search types:
- Integrated Maps Application
- Text Search for data sets and services
- Browse Library

24. NCS Portal Dashboard
http://www.climate.gov
Just as a dashboard gives
instant information on the
status of a vehicle’s
various systems, NOAA’s
Global Climate Dashboard
presents an overview of
the current state of Earth’s
climate system in historical
context.
The Dashboard is
designed for people
seeking a synoptic view
about what we know about
climate variability and
change, particularly policy
leaders.
Adjustable sliders up top allow users to focus on the time period of interest.
Hover cursor over graphs to produce brief “tool-tip” snippets stating what each parameter is showing.
Click on graphs to jump to more detailed landing pages with more details produced in a popular style.

25. A three-pronged strategy for
communicating with and educating our
target audiences
Dialog & Direct
Engagement
NOAA Science NOAA Web &
Communication & Social Media Target
Education Audience
Personnel
Partners &
trusted sources
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26. Gathering Feedback and Enhancing
Collaborations
If you have feedback &/or would like to be a contributor to any section of
If you have feedback &/or would like to be a contributor to any section of
Climate.gov, please contact the sections team leaders:
Climate.gov, please contact the sections team leaders:
 Climate Conditions:  Decision Support
david.herring@noaa.gov
luann.dahlman@noaa.gov
 Climate Dashboard:
 News & Features: viviane.silva@noaa.gov
rebecca.lindsey@noaa.gov
 Climate.gov in general:
 Teaching Climate david.herring@noaa.gov
frank.niepold@noaa.gov
 Data
sam.mccown@noaa.gov
john.keck@noaa.gov 26

27. Background Slides
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28. Quality of Relationships
Awareness
To what extent do the various target audiences know that NOAA exists &/or
what NOAA does
Trust
Perceptions of accuracy, credibility, and authority
Satisfaction
Perceptions of relevance, reliability, & completeness
Usability & Use
How easy is it to use climate.gov? How useful are the resources? Are the
resources being used? And, if so, how often / widely?
Control Mutuality
Can users ask questions, offer recommendations or criticisms,
& get timely responses? Is there opportunity for 2-way influence?

29. Easy Access to
Data Products
Short explanatory
Short explanatory
www.climate.gov article
article
Interactive
Interactive
MultiGraph
MultiGraph
References
References
cited
cited
Links to data &
Links to data &
source
source
provider
provider