CHIME: Research

CHIME research focuses on building understanding of how hazard prediction and communication interact with people’s risk interpretations and protective decisions in the modern information environment, as a hazard approaches and arrives. The project brings together computer and information sciences, atmospheric and related sciences, and social and behavioral sciences to address three major research questions: 
  1. How does evolving information about hurricane risk propagate through the information system as a hurricane approaches, and how do members of the public access, interpret, and respond to this information?    
  2. How does communication of risk in the modern information environment alleviate or exacerbate societal vulnerability to hurricanes in general, and of the most vulnerable members of the public in particular?
  3. Given recent and ongoing developments in hurricane hazard prediction, information and communication technology, and the roles of citizen actors, how can hurricane forecast and warning information and its communication be improved?
 We investigate these questions from multiple overlapping perspectives, through a combination of: