The map shows results from the Societal Impacts Programís Overall US Sector Sensitivity Assessment which examined the sensitivity and vulnerability of state-level economic productivity to weather. 24 years of economic data and 70 years of weather data were used in an economic model to estimate sensitivity and vulnerability to weather variability. The percent sensitivity represents how much each stateís gross state product varies around average due to weather variability impacts. All states show some sensitivity to weather with a range from 2.5% to 13.6% annual variability. Absolute gross state product is estimated to vary between $600,000 a year for Montana to over $110 billion a year for California. This is the first study of its kind to combine economic and weather data using valid economic methods to assess sector, state, and national economic sensitivity weather variability.
Priority 1: Investigating Weather and Climate Information Needs and Decision Making
Societal Impacts Program
Background
If the potential benefits associated with improved weather forecasts are to be realized, we need to understand how individuals and socioeconomic sectors use and could use different types of weather information. The Societal Impacts program (SIP), a collaborative effort that includes NOAA, UCAR's Office of Programs and NCAR researchers. The program serves as a focal point for assembling, coordinating, developing, and synthesizing research and information on the societal impacts and economic benefits of weather information.
Progress
Work is underway to evaluate individuals? uses and perceptions of uncertainty information in weather forecasts, to develop methods to assess the economic value of daily weather forecasts to households, and to assess the value of improved hurricane forecasts through a new program entitled, Weather And Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS). The program was instituted in 2006 to train and empower a community of practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders in the social and atmospheric sciences.
In 2005/2006, SIP staff in collaboration with two visiting scientists, Eve Gruntfest and Julie Demuth, developed and implemented the Weather And Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) Workshop and Short Course. This effort trains and empowers practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders to forge new relationships and to use new tools for more effective socio-economic applications and evaluations of weather products. Building on the overwhelming response to the first workshop two additional workshops were implemented one in Norman, Oklahoma and a second Boulder based workshop. A total of 86 WAS*IS graduates now comprise a growing community of researchers, operational forecasters, academics, and private sector individuals working to infuse social science research and understanding into the Weather Enterprise.
Plans
The Overall U.S. Sector Sensitivity Assessment will be extended into an assessment of specific sectors - likely beginning with the transportation sector. Researchers will also continue work on a study of the value of current and improved forecasts to US households in the first economically valid national study of the value of weather information. A similar focused effort will develop methods to assess the value of hurricane forecasts in vulnerable areas. Researchers will expand current efforts and collect data from approximately 1,000 US households to examine individuals' understanding, use, and value for uncertainty information in weather forecasts. Understanding the communication and use of uncertainty in weather forecasts will be a significant ongoing thread of future social science research and weather forecasts for the SIP. Finally, NCAR will host WAS*IS workshops in Melbourne, Australia, and in Boulder, Colorado.
This work is funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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