Second Polar Prediction Project (PPP) Societal and Economic Research and Applications (SERA) Meeting focused on end user use of weather and climate information

Source at http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0195.1 A primary goal of the World Meteorological Organization’s Polar Prediction Project (PPP) is to advance numerical modeling, data acquisition and assimilation, ensemble forecast methods, verification, and the development of prediction products for the polar regions. However, as aptly expressed more than two decades ago, “it should be understood that forecasts have no intrinsic value. They acquire value through their ability to influence the decisions made by users of the forecasts” (Murphy 1993, p. 286). Improved modeling and more technology are sometimes assumed to be inherently “better,” but if end users do not use, or cannot access, the information, they are not better in a societal sense. The work of the PPP’s Societal and Economic Research and Applications (SERA) subcommittee is focused on understanding how weather and climate information and forecasts are accessed, understood, and utilized in, for, and to learn about the polar regions. This work has the potential to enable weather and climate information providers and users to obtain greater value from advances in polar prediction that result from the Polar Prediction Project.