In the conclusion to the “Chancing the Storm” series, Heather Lazrus, Jennifer Henderson, and Julie Demuth describe the Scholarly Borderlands project, its goals, and how it gave rise to the series. In a number of collaborative panels presented at the American Meteorological Society’s annual meeting, presenters engaged with the question of how the multilayered aspects of uncertainty influence severe weather events. Speaking to weather prediction and communication specialists, these social scientists challenged the weather and climate communities to engage with the complexity their audiences face, and in particular, not to make assumptions about the homogeneity of those audiences. Attendees agreed more work needs to be done to make forecasting and hazard technical information more legible, and actionable, for communities at risk. We hope this series is a step in that direction.
Jen Henderson
Jen Henderson is a research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences in Boulder, Colorado. Her ethnographic work examines sociopolitical, ethical, and technical issues in extreme weather and drought warning systems in the United States. She works primarily as an embedded social scientist with various expert groups to understand their challenges and to make visible opportunities for improvements in these systems. She currently serves as a council member for the American Meteorological Society and a fellow with the Center for Advanced Public Safety at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.