Home > News > Warmer Weather Makes People More Sure About Global Warming
98 views 7 sec 0 Comment

Warmer Weather Makes People More Sure About Global Warming

- April 30, 2009

eganmullin.PNG

This is one of the coolest — I mean, hottest — findings I’ve seen in a while:

bq. 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.

The paper is by Patrick Egan and Megan Mullin, and their money graph is above. They linked Pew survey data to the local temperatures in each respondent’s zip code in the week before the survey.

Of course, the weather isn’t the most important factor; party identification and ideology have a much larger effect on attitudes. But the effect of the weather is still noteworthy. Egan and Mullin argue that its effects are particularly noteworthy among those who pay less attention to politics.

Find the paper here.

Topics on this page