The Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service (DHMZ) has faced significant challenges in recent years that have greatly impacted and altered its daily operations, particularly in the part of communication and media. The first major challenge was the global lockdown imposed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As if that was not enough, the city of Zagreb was struck by a devastating earthquake during the same period, causing severe damage to the DHMZ administration building and making access to infrastructure tools extremely difficult or even temporarily impossible.

Despite the justified fear and disruption caused by the earthquake, DHMZ employees demonstrated a strong sense of responsibility and managed to maintain continuity in their main operational activities. They made efforts to remain accessible to users, media, and the general public through alternative means such as the DHMZ website, social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube channel and email.

As the initial fear of earthquakes subsided and quarantine measures relaxed, DHMZ faced the daunting task of relocating from the damaged building to a rented one that was not originally designed for the specific needs of a national meteorological and hydrological service. Throughout this process, DHMZ had to navigate the challenges of maintaining physical distancing measures while preserving close internal and external communication to ensure that the main operational activities of the service were not disrupted.

This experience has provided DHMZ with valuable lessons in communication during times of crisis. It highlighted the importance of having robust communication channels in place, including alternative methods such as social media and email, to ensure continued availability to users, media, and the general public. It also underscored the significance of maintaining close internal and external communication, even in challenging circumstances, to ensure that the service can fulfil its mission effectively. DHMZ has learned from these challenges and continues to strive for effective communication and media outreach in its daily operations.

This work contains the lessons learned from this period of challenges and highlights the importance of communication strategies, alternative channels, and maintaining internal and external communication during times of crisis.

How to cite: Špoler Čanić, K. and Grljak, I.: The lockdown, the earthquake and the moving - the three communication challenges, EMS Annual Meeting 2023, Bratislava, Slovakia, 4–8 Sep 2023, EMS2023-405, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2023-405, 2023.

(Hydro-)meteorological extreme events account for a large portion of immediate exposure to and long-term impact by climate change for humans, ecosystems and infrastructure worldwide. These extremes, especially high-impact events, are often communicated by means of return periods, e.g., a 1-in-100 years flood, a 1-in-50 years drought. Frequency increases are already observed for a range of meteorological extremes, in parts also at temporal scales of merely a few decades (i.e., less than a human lifetime). Distributional shifts of atmospheric variables, e.g., temperature or precipitation, lead to further frequency increases of (current) extremes and the emergence of yet unseen, sometimes compound and cascading events. Therefore, one could think that the (decreasing) rareness of extreme events forms a good basis for illustrating the impacts of climate change among the broad public.

However, the common reaction is similar to the headline introduction: Again another once-in-a-lifetime flood? But we just had one last year … In other cases, the new regularity of extreme events often seems to cause habituation or fatalism rather than concern.

Apparently, there is a discrepancy between the scientific understanding of extremes on the one side and the public perception and personal experience on the other side. In this contribution, we try to illustrate this discrepancy and explore ways to approximate the different perceptions.

We start by showing how prominently return periods are used explicitly and implicitly in grasping extremes (both in science and everyday-talking). A clear scientific definition will follow and hint to potential sources of misunderstanding. We next present examples where return periods are used for communicating (hydro-)meteorological hazards to the general public: 1. teaching the meaning and understanding of meteorological data with a focus on extremes with the “Living with changing climate”-course of the Finnish Climate University initiative (https://climateuniversity.fi/portfolio-items/living_with_changing_climate/), which is targeting people from outside academia as well, and 2. results from the Bavarian-Québec ClimEx project (https://climex-project.org) formatted as a hydrometeorological atlas. Further, we discuss ideas of tailoring return periods to peoples’ life experience e.g. by referring to literature and using 80-years as the averaged life expectation.

We conclude by summarizing where we think that these examples succeed or struggle in clarifying the meaning and implications of extremes and provide an outlook on further ideas and narratives to bridge the gap between science and society.

How to cite: Böhnisch, A., Mittermeier, M., Gregow, H., Vajda, A., Mäkelä, A., Korhonen, N., Riuttanen, L., and Ludwig, R.: Again another once-in-a-lifetime flood? - Exploring ways to communicate climate extremes, EMS Annual Meeting 2023, Bratislava, Slovakia, 4–8 Sep 2023, EMS2023-94, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2023-94, 2023.

The environmental psychologist Per Espen Stoknes mentions five inner defenses people typically build up to protect themselves from the bad news surrounding climate change. These barriers cause people to distance themselves from the topic, leaving them unmotivated to take climate action. In order to reach people, the first two inner defenses to overcome are distance and doom. Distance stands for climate impacts that seem far away and/or in the far future. Doom addresses the mainly negative headlines about climate change, which do not motivate people to act.

Potential solutions to overcome these inner defenses or avoid building them in the first place are approachable and supportive ways of communicating about climate change using storylines. Storylines consist of coherent narratives which are relatable to the broad public. Powerful storylines for example highlight personal benefits of climate action such as healthy and climate-friendly food or attractive green cities, or social components like a neighborhood full of solar panels. However, examples of such a way of communication usually address disciplines directly involved in climate change mitigation or adaptation. For meteorological studies e.g. dealing with extreme events and their threats to society, it is challenging to apply such positive storytelling when the key messages of a study are concerning.

In this talk, we describe the problem of defense-building science communication and explore the question of how strategies for their removal or rebuilding as proposed by Per Espen Stoknes could be applied to meteorological studies. We describe the specific challenges in studies on extreme events and their impacts on the basis of summer droughts in Europe. We want to introduce our following ideas for avoiding the inner defenses of distance and doom in meteorological science communication to the scientific discussion: 1. focusing research on daily life to make it approachable and near, 2. using creative science communication formats and storytelling in order to take a positive approach to the topic, and 3. referring to climate solutions of disciplines involved in climate mitigation and adaptation for a solution-based, supportive outlook.

How to cite: Mittermeier, M. and Böhnisch, A.: Defense-building climate change communication and ideas of how to overcome it in meteorological studies, EMS Annual Meeting 2023, Bratislava, Slovakia, 4–8 Sep 2023, EMS2023-96, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2023-96, 2023.

The ARSO podcast story began about five years ago. The main idea was how to present interesting weather events at home and around the world in the form of a new format - podcast. The new format began to gain more and more recognition in the media. On-demand broadcasts have become increasingly popular, and with some earlier experience, a pilot episode of the ARSO podcast on tropical cyclones was recorded in the summer of 2018. Before the official start of recording, it was necessary to arrange all the technical preparation. That was necessary for the smooth operation of the last five years. It was decided that we are publishing the ARSO podcast every 14 days, which turned out to be a relatively very common frequency. The first episode of the ARSO podcast was recorded at the beginning of December 2018. It was about global warming projections, a project nearly finished at our Agency. During these five years, a lot of different natural science topics have taken place, ranging from hydrology, geography, computer science, seismology, and, of course, meteorology, which represents most of the podcast's main topics. During this time, the format of the podcast changed slightly and finally settled on the main topic, where it is presented by one or more guests. There is also a weather forecast for the next few days presented by one of the weather forecasters. ARSO podcast is present on most audio platforms, where you can subscribe to it, and all episodes are also available on our website. This year we recorded our 100th regular episode, and we believe there will be quite a few more in the future.

How to cite: Klancar, M.: ARSO podcast - a podcast from the Slovenian Environmental Agency, EMS Annual Meeting 2023, Bratislava, Slovakia, 4–8 Sep 2023, EMS2023-98, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2023-98, 2023.

It is common in the United States for commercial television stations to break away from scheduled programs for live coverage of tornadoes and hurricanes. It is much rarer for stations to interrupt programs for severe thunderstorm events such as derechos.  

Climatologically, the eastern half of the state of South Dakota experiences moderate and high intensity (MH) derechos approximately once every one to three years (Coniglio and Stensrud 2004). But in 2022, there were two such events in the region in 54 days. During the storms, one television station interrupted programming non-stop for several hours to broadcast coverage of the derechos and their projected movement.  

While it is unusual practice to broadcast non-tornadic storms, due to the size and temporal longevity of derechos it is possible they pose a greater threat to persons and property than localized tornadoes. Post-event audience measurements confirmed there was significant viewership of the derechos, providing the public with advance notice of incoming damaging winds. 

How to cite: Trobec, J.: Interrupting Normal Television Programming to Broadcast Ongoing Derechos, EMS Annual Meeting 2023, Bratislava, Slovakia, 4–8 Sep 2023, EMS2023-118, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2023-118, 2023.

What are the secrets of how journal editors do their jobs?  What are the top tips to getting your paper published in a high-quality journal?  How best to respond to peer reviewers’ comments?  These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this presentation.  Professor Schultz is the former Editor in Chief of Monthly Weather Review (2008–2022) and the author of Eloquent Science: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Better Writer, Speaker, and Atmospheric Scientist.

How to cite: Schultz, D.: Secrets of a Journal Editor: How to Write Your Paper, Survive Peer Review, and Get Your Paper Published, EMS Annual Meeting 2023, Bratislava, Slovakia, 4–8 Sep 2023, EMS2023-108, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2023-108, 2023.

As our understanding of the atmosphere evolves and the computing resources to model the atmosphere become more accurate, communicating the forecast to users remains as important as ever. Since the first radio and television weather forecasts, the role of the meteorologist has required effective communication for users to make better weather-impacted decisions. Now, as consumers glean weather forecasts and information from digital sources such as weather apps, websites, and social media outlets, meteorologists are called upon to create new ways to communicate the impacts and context of the weather forecast concisely and effectively. Over its 60-year history, AccuWeather has pioneered many advances in the field of weather communication, including the industry’s first 7-day local television forecast, AccuWeather RealFeel ® Temperature, and AccuWeather RealImpact^TM Scale for Hurricanes. Meteorologists were crucial to the development of each of these innovations, and meteorologists remain at the heart of AccuWeather’s mission to save lives, protect property and help people, businesses and communities prosper – enabling better decisions. AccuWeather meteorologists are an integral part of an innovative forecast process that combines human expertise with state-of-the-science data ingestion, processing, and analysis methods. This process continuously evolves to ensure forecasts that are provided to a variety of users such as governments, businesses, and the general public are the most actionable, timely, and detailed. By providing forecasts that are the most accurate, localized, and impact-based, AccuWeather communicates weather information worldwide that helps people make decisions to improve their lives. The ways in which AccuWeather helps the public to understand the complexity of the forecast will be discussed in addition to unique role of the meteorologist at AccuWeather.

How to cite: Roys, T.: Communicating Weather on Digital Platforms - How AccuWeather Meteorologists Help People Make Better Decisions, EMS Annual Meeting 2023, Bratislava, Slovakia, 4–8 Sep 2023, EMS2023-553, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2023-553, 2023.

The adverse phenomena of ocean-meteorology can be complicated and difficult for people not from a meteorological background to understand. Scientific illustrations create a base knowledge in meteorological concepts so that in adverse situations, the public can evaluate the risks and how to act in order to reduce the socioeconomic impacts. 

In collaboration with the Universidad del País Vasco(UPV/EHU) and the basque meteorological service(Euskalmet), the principle objective of this project is to investigate which are the best technical methods of scientific illustration to explain and advise about the risks of different adverse phenomena. The work will center around the phenomena most frequent in the Basque Country and the highest priorities for Euskalmet, the regional meteorological service who publish the results. This project will create a collection of illustrations for Euskalmet for their different communication channels. Such illustrations may consist within scientific articles, books, information pamphlets, social media, diagrams, or posters. The objective within each work is to explain the content of the phenomena in an attractive and accessible way to any potential audience. In order to achieve this objective, the communication between the illustrator and environmental engineer must be fluid. The experience of this collaboration will enhance the learnings from past meteorological illustrations and how they have evolved over time, which is the first and crucial start to this work. 

In this historical study, we will analyze the evolution of meteorological understanding alongside the graphic techniques used within their context (scientific, informative, educational) up to what is being used in the present day. This work aims to follow this year’s motto of the World Meteorological Organization “the future of weather, climate, and water across generations”, learning from the past to project into the future, using the most effective and modern techniques to make the population more aware of meteorology in general, climate change, and the socio-economic influence the weather has on our lives.

How to cite: Steelman, D. and Maruri, M.: Effective Use of Meteorological Illustration in Communicating with the Public, EMS Annual Meeting 2023, Bratislava, Slovakia, 4–8 Sep 2023, EMS2023-22, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2023-22, 2023.