A large and growing majority of Americans (74%, up 5 points since our last national survey in March 2012) say “global warming is affecting weather in the United States”.
Report Summary
Highlights
- A large and growing majority of Americans say “global warming is affecting weather in the United States” (74%, up 5 points since our last national survey in March 2012).
- Asked about six recent extreme weather events in the United States, including record high summer temperatures, the Midwest drought, and the unusually warm winter and spring of 2011-12, majorities say global warming made each event “worse.”
- Americans were most likely to connect global warming to the record high temperatures in the summer of 2012 (73%).
- Americans increasingly say weather in the U.S. has been getting worse over the past several years (61%, up 9 percentage points since March). A majority of Americans (58%) say that heat waves have become more common in their local area over the past few decades, up 5 points since March, with especially large increases in the Northeast and Midwest (+12 and +15 points, respectively).
- More than twice as many Midwesterners say they personally experienced an extreme heat wave (83%, up 48 points since March) or drought (81%, up 55 points) in the past year.
- One in five Americans (20%) says they suffered harm to their health, property, and/or finances from an extreme heat wave in the past year, a 6-point increase since March. In addition, 15 percent say they suffered harm from a drought in the past year, up 4 points.
This report is based on findings from a nationally representative survey – Climate Change in the
American Mind – conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George
Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. Interview dates: August 31, 2012 –
September, 2012. Interviews: 1,061 Adults (18+) Total average margin of error: +/- 3 percentage
points at the 95% confidence level. It was funded by the Surdna Foundation, the 11th Hour Project,
and the Grantham Foundation.
Principal Investigators:
Anthony Leiserowitz, PhD
Yale Project on Climate Change Communication
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Yale University
(203) 432-4865
[email protected]
Edward Maibach, MPH, PhD
Center for Climate Change Communication
Department of Communication
George Mason University
(703) 993-1587
[email protected]
Connie Roser-Renouf, PhD
Center for Climate Change Communication
Department of Communication
George Mason University
(707) 825-0601
[email protected]
Geoff Feinberg
Yale Project on Climate Change Communication
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Yale University
(203) 432-7438
[email protected]
Peter Howe, PhD
Yale Project on Climate Change Communication
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Yale University
[email protected]
Cite as: Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., Feinberg, G., & Howe, P. (2012) Extreme
Weather and Climate Change in the American Mind. Yale University and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.