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Effective communication of heat risk to public audiences is critical for promoting behavioral changes that reduce susceptibility to heat-related illness. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS) provides heat-related information to the public using social media platforms such as Facebook. We applied a novel rhetorical framework to evaluate 5 years (2015–2019) of public responses to heat-related Facebook posts from the NWS office in Phoenix (Arizona) to identify “commonplaces” or community norms, beliefs, and values that may present challenges to the effectiveness of heat risk communication. Phoenix is in one of the hottest regions in North America and is the 10th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S. We found the following two key commonplaces: (1) the normalization of heat and (2) heat as a marker of community identity. These commonplaces imply that local audiences may be resistant to behavioral change, but they can also be harnessed in an effort to promote protective action. We also found that public responses to NWS posts declined over the heat season, further suggesting the normalization of heat and highlighting the need to maintain engagement. This work provides a readily generalizable framework for other messengers of high-impact weather events to improve the effectiveness of their communication with receiver audiences.

Researchers are producing an ever greater number of web-based climate data and analysis tools in support of natural resource research and management. Yet the apparent absence or underreporting of evaluation in the development of these applications has raised questions as to whether, by whom, and for what they are utilized, and, relatedly, whether they meet the rationale for their development. This paper joins recent efforts to address these questions by introducing one approach to evaluation—developmental evaluation—and reporting on its use in the evaluation of the Southwest Climate and Environmental Information Collaborative (SCENIC). A web interface under development at the Western Regional Climate Center, SCENIC provides access to climate data and analysis tools to environmental scientists in support of natural resource research and management in the southwestern United States. Evaluation findings highlight subtlety in the improvements necessary for ensuring a useful and usable application that could not have been ascertained in the absence of end-user feedback. We therefore urge researchers to systematically evaluate web-based climate data and analysis tools in the interest of ensuring their usefulness, usability, and fulfillment of the proposed rationale. In so doing, we recommend that researchers test and apply established evaluation frameworks, thereby engaging end users directly in the process of application development.

Despite the risk of climate variability to agriculture, farmer use of climate information in agricultural decision-making generally remains low. Research has suggested that where farmers already have robust “repertoires” of decision-making resources adapted to some degree of climate variability, such new information may simply factor less saliently. This study asks whether farmer use of climate information increases under the occurrence of more extreme climatic events for which those repertoires lack referent—in this case, severe hydrological and related regulatory drought in the Klamath basin. Semistructured interviews with key informants of Klamath basin agriculture indicate a marked increase in farmer use of climate and climate-related information since the onset of drought in 2001. What information farmers utilize, however, depends on whether it retains its predictive and explanatory value under both types of drought. Findings highlight the need for consideration of coproduction approaches to the development of climate information if it is to serve farmers where the extremity of climate events produces changes not only in availability of but also in access to key agricultural resources.

There is increasing interest among scholars in producing information that is useful and usable to land and natural resource managers in a changing climate. This interest has prompted transitions from scientist- to stakeholder-driven or collaborative approaches to climate science. A common indicator of successful collaboration is whether stakeholders use the information resulting from the projects in which they are engaged. However, detailed examples of how stakeholders use climate information are relatively scarce in the literature, leading to a challenge in understanding what researchers can and should expect and plan for in terms of stakeholder use of research findings. Drawing on theoretical, typological, and evaluation insights from the field of information use, we examine stakeholder use of climate information emerging from 13 collaborative climate science projects conducted in the western United States between 2012 and 2016. Three primary types of use emerge from our findings—conceptual, instrumental, and justification—reflecting common typologization of information use. Conceptual use was the most predominant. We suggest that researcher awareness of this typology can enable more systematic understanding of what project outputs stakeholders use and impacts of those outputs, giving way to new areas of inquiry and aiding in the conceptualization and design of climate information products for land and natural resource managers.

Climate change is projected to substantially alter the hydrological cycles of mountainous regions, with pronounced consequences for the human settlements in these areas. Because projections of climatic changes and their environmental and societal impacts in local settings are uncertain, policies to reduce vulnerability and strengthen adaptation should be informed by ongoing processes in sites already exposed to climatic variability and change. This paper examines vulnerability to hydrological change in Northern Ecuador and shows how access to irrigation water mediates the ability of different groups of farmers to adapt. We argue that present vulnerabilities need to be understood in the context of the history of resource rights distribution in the area and that agricultural adaptation would be aided by a reform of current water rights, allowing water resources to be more equitably distributed.

Postprint Climate change is expected to profoundly alter the growing conditions of agricultural crops, potentially causing decline in food production in several parts of the world. A switch from crops and crop varieties currently grown to others that are better adapted to new environmental conditions has been suggested as one possible adaptation strategy. While research has documented the upward migration of wild species linked to recent warming in mountain environments, there has been little empirical research on corresponding shifts in the ranges of cultivated species. This study examines changes in the elevation of maize cultivation on the slopes of Mt. Cotacachi, a volcano located in the Northern Ecuadorian highlands. The results show that during the past two decades, farmers in four communities have expanded maize cultivation an estimated 200–300 m in elevation, linked to their observations of climatic and environmental change. This suggests that in tropical mountain regions like the Andes that exhibit closely stacked agroecological zones, the upward movement of local crops and crop varieties constitutes one feasible locally based adaptive response to changes in growing conditions induced by global warming.