Public more confident connecting increasing heat, wildfires with climate change than other extreme weather events, study finds

Public Perceptions of Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change

CORVALLIS, Ore. — A recent study conducted by researchers from Oregon State University (OSU) has found that U.S. adults are fairly confident in linking wildfires and heat to climate change, but less confident when it comes to other extreme weather events like hurricanes, flooding, or tornadoes.

Politics and Personal Experience Influence Perceptions

The study revealed that politics and personal experience played significant roles in people’s responses. Self-identified Republicans were less likely than Democrats to attribute extreme weather events to climate change. However, Republicans who had personally experienced negative impacts from extreme weather events were more likely to link them to climate change than those who hadn’t.

Linking Extreme Weather Events to Climate Change

When considering extreme weather events overall, 83% of survey respondents believed there is some link between these events and anthropogenic, or human-caused, climate change. Only about 17% thought climate change had nothing to do with extreme weather.

“There is a growing field of scientific extreme event attribution to climate change, but we know less about what the public thinks,” said Hilary Boudet, co-author of the study and an associate professor in OSU’s College of Liberal Arts. “This work helps us to better understand public perceptions of event attribution to climate change. What the public thinks is important because these perceptions shape individual behavior and policy support.”

Study Methodology

The study, published in the journal Climatic Change, used data from September 2021 from 1,071 adults across the U.S. who participated in a recurring biweekly AmeriSpeak Omnibus survey. The researchers asked respondents about five different extreme climate events — wildfires, heat, rainfall/flooding, hurricanes, and tornadoes — and how confident they felt linking the increasing frequency and severity of each event to anthropogenic climate change.

Respondents had to rate their confidence on a scale of 1 to 5, with “5” indicating absolute certainty that climate change is to blame for increased wildfires, for example. The survey also asked whether respondents had personally experienced any negative impacts from the five different types of extreme weather.

Findings

The findings showed that more than 47% of people were “very” or “extremely confident” in linking increased wildfires to climate change, and roughly 42% of people were very or extremely confident linking extreme heat to climate change.

Out of all five weather event types, Republicans and Democrats were farthest apart on the measure of extreme heat, and closest on hurricanes. Race, education, and income also played a role in people’s responses.

The study did not ask why respondents chose the numbers they did, but co-author Philip Mote, a professor in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, provided some theories. For example, the impact of wildfires spreads far beyond the physical flames. During the massive wildfires in eastern Canada last year, New Yorkers 1,500 miles away were suffering from poor air quality as a result of smoke drifting from those fires. Conversely, hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods in the U.S. tend to affect relatively narrow areas.

The study also reported the alignment between public attribution of extreme weather events and scientific consensus around extreme weather and climate change. The alignment was weakest on the measure of wildfires, which Mote linked to the narrow scientific definition that only records the number of extreme fires, rather than overall fire weather. The general public is more likely considering all the hot, dry conditions that contribute to worsening wildfires amid climate change.

Importance of Public Perceptions

Researchers emphasize that understanding and improving public perceptions of extreme weather events linked to climate change is crucial for maximizing the impact of mitigation efforts. This ensures that resources are directed toward actions that can make a real difference, rather than solely responding to events that trigger the largest public response.

The lead author of the study was recent OSU doctoral graduate Chad Zanocco, who is now at Stanford University. Philip Mote, the vice provost and dean of OSU’s Graduate School, also contributed to the study.

Source: today.oregonstate.edu