Hi folks,
Remember, no colloquium tomorrow, but there is a great talk in the Baker Center and during colloquium time, you can meet the speaker for cookies in the Geography Community room on the first floor!
Best wishes.
Sally Horn
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Join us for the next Baker Center Energy and Environment Forum, which will take place on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 1:00 pm in the Toyota Auditorium in the Baker Center.
Dr. Julie Demuth from National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in the Weather Risks and Decisions in Society (WRaDS) research group, will give a 45 minute presentation and then lead a discussion with participants. Her talk is titled:
Understanding Public Risk Perception and Responses to Tornadoes by Looking at Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Abstract: Despite tremendous advances in meteorological observations, knowledge, and forecasts, people still experience significant harm to life, property, and well-being due to tornadoes. Reducing these negative effects in part requires better understanding what people think and do – and why – when there is a tornado risk. This presentation will discuss research efforts to investigate people’s tornado risk perceptions and responses through the conceptual lens of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. “Yesterday” represents research on people’s past tornado experiences. People’s past experiences with a hazard theoretically influence how they approach future risks. Yet, past hazard experience has been conceptualized and measured in wide-ranging, often simplistic ways. This portion of the presentation will summarize research from two surveys of the public to better characterize different types of tornado experiences that people have and how their different effects on people’s tornado risk perceptions. “Today” represents research from a recent deadly tornado event in the Southeastern US to examine how people’s risk perceptions and responses evolve dynamically with a tornado threat, and how these interact with evolving risk information and vulnerabilities. The analysis is based on data collected from in-person interviews following the tornadoes as well as Twitter narratives leading up to and during the tornado from people who were in the area at risk. This portion of presentation will illustrate how these complementary datasets reveal the nuanced, multi-faceted ways that tornado risk information is accessed, interpreted, and used as a tornado threat evolves. Finally, “tomorrow” represents research to investigate probabilistic tornado warnings, which the National Weather Service is considering providing in the future, from the public’s perspective. A mixed-method study was conducted, with experiments followed by in-person interviews. Both methods evaluated different tornado warning visuals, including a deterministic warning (as is currently issued) and multiple probabilistic warning formats, as well as different locations in each visual. This portion of the presentation will discuss people’s cognitive risk perceptions, measured as their perceived likelihood and perceived severity of a tornado, as well as their intended responses. Implications for policy and for future research will conclude the presentation.
Bio: Julie Demuth is a research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in the Weather Risks and Decisions in Society (WRaDS) research group. She has been working for nearly 15 years on integrating social science research with the meteorological research and practitioner communities. With a hybrid background in atmospheric science and in communication, Julie conducts research on hazardous weather risk communication, risk perceptions, and responses. Her work is with both experts, such as weather forecasters, and members of the public. Julie received her BS in meteorology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, her MS in atmospheric science from Colorado State University, and her PhD in public communication and technology from Colorado State University.
The Baker Center Energy and Environment Forum is an opportunity for academics to share their research findings with a broad set of academics, researchers, and students from outside their own discipline but who have a common interest in environment and energy issues. For more information about the Baker Center Energy and Environment Forum visit the forum’s website: http://bakercenter.utk.edu/energy-environment/.