DO OUR CLIMATE BELIEFS CHANGE WITH THE WEATHER?

Written by: Brian Neudorff

When it comes to climate change one weather event, like a category 5 hurricane, large blizzard or even a week with very hot or cold temperatures, doesn't prove or disprove global warming. In a recent paper by Patrick Egan and Megan Mullin, it appears that local weather conditions can and does influence how a good number of people think about climate change, and here's graphic evidence. Egan and Mullen linked Pew survey data to the local temperatures in each respondent’s zip code in the week before the survey.

From their paper they found:

"For each three degrees that local temperature rises above normal, Americans become one percentage point more likely to agree that there is 'solid evidence' that the earth is getting warmer."

Weather isn’t the most important factor; party affiliation and ideology play a much larger role on attitudes towards climate change, but the effect of the weather is still very interesting. Egan and Mullin point out that those who are not particularly partisan and pay less attention to politics have their attitudes toward climate change affected more by local weather conditions than those who have strong political beliefs with one party or the other.