Decision-making aspects in weather forecasting Training towards expertise Eumetcal 6th workshop WMO, Geneva Dec 1 st, 2010 Erik Hagemark Is decision-making important? Courtesy Magnus Ovhed What characteristics does an expert weather forecaster have? Meteorologisk institutt met.no Presentation outline - Crash course in cognitive psychology - Studies of weather forecasters - Exercises Competence vs expertise Competence ability to produce and deliver weather forecasts Involves basic analytical and meteorological skills Expertise Fluent, flexible Intuitive Involves cognitive skills Forecaster dependencies Cognitive tools Science (predictability) Data and workstation Name some cognitive skills Noticing patterns Seeking information Meaning making Visual Representation Metacognitive processes Game show - choose a door 123 Which is a more likely cause of death in the USA: Falling airplane parts Shark attacks From Plous (question #7) What alternative seems most likely to occur within the next ten years: All-out nuclear war between the USA and Russia All-out nuclear war between the USA and Russia in which neither country intends to use nuclear weapons, but both sides are drawn in by the actions of a third country such as Libya or Pakistan. From Plous (question #11) What is heuristics? A short-cut to assess the likelihood of an event. (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974) INTUITION EXPERIENCE Meteorologisk institutt met.no Heuristics in Doswell (WF, dec 2004) Personal Analysis vs intuition Biases Contradictions Meteorologisk institutt met.no Heuristics Two types considered: Representativeness Weather pattern recognition Availability Use our memory to assess likelihood of a particular event Other heuristics Anchoring and adjustment Group decision Hindsight bias I knew it all along Cognitive psychologists Pliske, Crandall and Klein: 5 levels of competence novice advanced beginner competent proficient expert What differences are there between experts and novices Cognitive psychologists Pliske, Crandall and Klein (cont'd): Characteristics of the expert forecaster Form a mental model prior to looking at NWP Mental representation of underlying dynamics of the weather situation Hahn, Rall and Klinger: What decisions stood out as expert decisions: Identifying the Big One Recognizing severity and issuing warnings Explicit information to the public (wording) Cognitive psychologists Hahn, Rall and Klinger (cont.): Recommendations Technology must synchronize with the decision-making process of forecasters Understand factors that make experts stand out and train others to this Teamwork (colleagues as sounding boards) Cognitive psychologists Suggest and discuss training activities that promote expertise Meteorologisk institutt met.no Thank you! There is no right way to make decisions - Pliske et.al Decision making is heavily dependent on time and mood. - Plousfor-adults-our-top-50/ Meteorologisk institutt met.no Recommendations for training Social psychology research Second guessing what could go wrong? Discuss with colleagues Difficult decisions Ian Bell Hand-out Eumetcal WS 2008 Hahn et al - cognitive task analysis Meteorologisk institutt met.no A word on feedback Vital to improve performance Project Phoenix is a good example on how this can be done operationally Environment: Opportunity to learn Self: Open to critics Meteorologisk institutt met.no Project Phoenix SKILL Forecaster NWP Limit of predictability Better Data Understanding the Science Technology/Tools Techniques Decision Making TIME David Ball, MSC. Eumetcal NWP 2007 Meteorologisk institutt met.no Leonard Snellman, 1977 Meteorologisk institutt met.no Bulletin of the AMS (BAMS) BAMS, Dec 2007 BAMS, Nov 2006