Understanding scientists’ communication challenges at the intersection of climate and agriculture

the scientists’ producer perspective and the actual responses of the producers (Fig 1; S4 Table; p-value); however, this resulted in a mean ranking difference for “Climate change will not affect the way that producers operate” of +0.3. There were no significant differences between the sci- entists’ crop advisor perspective and the actual crop advisor responses (Fig 1, S4 Table; p-value). Framing Terminology use is dependent on which stakeholder groups are being addressed for some of the terms (Fig 2; S5 Table). Overall, however, “extreme weather,” “weather variability,” “cli- mate variability,” and “climate change,” were more likely to be used than the phrases “global warming” and “climate debate” for all stakeholder groups. Scientists were statistically signifi- cantly more likely to use “sustainability” with agribusinesses than with producers or the gen- eral public. They were statistically significantly more likely to use the phrases “climate change” and “green development” with policymakers and the general public than with producers. Using the term “manmade and/or human made” was statistically significantly more likely with Fig 1. Scientists’ agreement with and perspectives on climate statements by producer and crop advisor compared to producer and crop advisor agreement. Significant relationships are demonstrated in tables above each statement (S2–S4 Tables). Gray indicates where pairwise comparisons were not

applicable. Statistical significance is indicated by �, ��, and ���, which corresponds to a statistical significance level at 0.05, 0.01, 0.001, respectively as well as no significance by “n.s.” The ranking scale was from 1–5, where: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, 4 = agree, and 5 = strongly agree. Scientist perspectives were measured in a 2017 survey while surveys of producers (Singh et al. 2018) and crop advisors (Koundinya et al. 2017) were conducted as separately in 2016. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269927.g001 PLOS ONE Understanding scientists’ communication challenges at the intersection of climate and agriculture PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269927 August 2, 2022 9 / 22