Blog: Experiences with the language and context of warnings

By Chloe Crothers

(Chloe Crothers, an American, has interned with the Climate Centre since September 2025 in Sweden where she is working on her master’s degree in disaster risk management and climate adaption at Lund University.)

I’ve always noticed when I travel somewhere new that I instinctively start paying attention to how easy (or not) public transportation is to understand and navigate.

Here in Sweden, cross-country trains make announcements in Swedish and English, but local transportation only uses Swedish. Similarly, some public service apps are only in Swedish, including SOS Alarm 112 – an app used to provide information on emergencies.

At the Climate Centre, I’ve been working with the anticipatory action team on the Mediterranean and Pan-European Forecast and Early Warning System against Natural Hazards that is supported by the European Commission.

This project works to strengthen multi-hazard, impact-based early warning systems to provide timely and accurate forecasts and warnings for eight pilot sites across Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa; as part of the Climate Centre’s engagement, we’ve been working to understand how the public perceives and responds to early warning communication.

With other stakeholders, I helped adapt IFRC templates on public awareness of and education on early warning to align with country contexts, as well as organizing and facilitating validation workshops for these templates.

Organizing validation workshops introduced me to the back-and-forth of developing material
for a diverse audience

My university courses emphasized the importance of context, but it has been working on the European project that has allowed me to apply it in practice. It has been fascinating listening to stakeholder feedback on early warning messages and how to better adjust them for local conditions.

Working with these eight countries has exposed me to contexts that I might not have encountered so early in my career. Organizing validation workshops introduced me to the back-and-forth of developing material for a diverse audience.

At the same time, this process has given me a greater understanding of why some early warning systems struggle to implement feedback mechanisms.

Working remotely and being part of such an inspiring team required me to develop confidence in my own abilities; this came with a learning curve, but once I gained confidence it sparked a creative mindset and inspired new ideas.

Going into my internship, I knew I wanted my thesis to focus on early warning communication, but I was unsure how to refine it further. During my time here, I reflected on my background in art and how it connects with my interest in early warning communication and work on vulnerabilities.

This led me to focus on researching whether visual design elements in early warning messages can improve comprehension and protective action where language is a barrier.

In the past year, I’ve been working towards a career that allows me to develop early warning systems and work in science communication.

(Photo: Luca Emilie Bösert/Climate Centre)