Visualizing Climate Change: the Potential of Dome Presentations as a Tool for Climate Communication

Abstract

This study presents the outline of a climate visualization programme directed to various target groups that was presented in a dome environment. The efforts of climate and visualization researchers to jointly develop presentations for immersive environments on the cause and effect of climate change as well as potential responses both in terms of national and international policy as well as individuals lifestyles are described. Further we discuss the results of an evaluation with 64 participants of dome presentations. The results point towards an initial support for the dome visualization in terms of increased engagement of the audience. Further, visual representations such as choice of colouring and volume bar charts that were expected to be problematic by the research group were considered straightforward by the audience. In this paper we discuss visual representation and climate communication, and to what extent climate visualization in a dome environment can contribute to enhance the audience s understanding of the complexity of climate change issues.