IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v142y2017i1d10.1007_s10584-017-1934-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is it hot in here or is it just me? Temperature anomalies and political polarization over global warming in the American public

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremiah Bohr

    (University of Wisconsin Oshkosh)

Abstract

Do temperature anomalies affect political polarization over global warming? Americans’ attitudes about global warming are affected by whether they reside in states experiencing unseasonably warm (or cold) temperatures versus those experiencing milder temperatures. Specifically, in terms of causal attribution, political polarization over global warming is more pronounced in states experiencing temperature anomalies. Using pooled data collected during 2013–2014, this study utilizes logistic regression to explore how temperature anomalies exacerbate the political polarization among Americans over perceptions of whether global warming impacts are immediately evident as well as the attribution of global warming to human activity. Results indicate that very cold or warm temperature anomalies from a 5-year baseline predict perceptions of global warming impacts and exacerbate existing political polarization over the causal attribution of global warming. These effects are particularly noticeable among Democrats. This analysis provides a contribution to understanding how temperature anomalies from the recent past shape the sociophysical context of global warming attitudes.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremiah Bohr, 2017. "Is it hot in here or is it just me? Temperature anomalies and political polarization over global warming in the American public," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 271-285, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:142:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-017-1934-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-017-1934-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-017-1934-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-017-1934-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon Donner & Jeremy McDaniels, 2013. "The influence of national temperature fluctuations on opinions about climate change in the U.S. since 1990," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 118(3), pages 537-550, June.
    2. Robert Brulle & Jason Carmichael & J. Jenkins, 2012. "Shifting public opinion on climate change: an empirical assessment of factors influencing concern over climate change in the U.S., 2002–2010," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 169-188, September.
    3. David M. Konisky & Llewelyn Hughes & Charles H. Kaylor, 2016. "Extreme weather events and climate change concern," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(4), pages 533-547, February.
    4. Jeremiah Bohr, 2014. "Public views on the dangers and importance of climate change: predicting climate change beliefs in the United States through income moderated by party identification," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 217-227, September.
    5. Robert Brulle, 2014. "Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 122(4), pages 681-694, February.
    6. Aaron McCright, 2011. "Political orientation moderates Americans’ beliefs and concern about climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 104(2), pages 243-253, January.
    7. Lawrence Hamilton, 2011. "Education, politics and opinions about climate change evidence for interaction effects," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 104(2), pages 231-242, January.
    8. Robert Y. Shum, 2012. "Effects of economic recession and local weather on climate change attitudes," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 38-49, January.
    9. Stuart Capstick & Nicholas Pidgeon, 2014. "Public perception of cold weather events as evidence for and against climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 122(4), pages 695-708, February.
    10. Srdan Medimorec & Gordon Pennycook, 2015. "The language of denial: text analysis reveals differences in language use between climate change proponents and skeptics," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 133(4), pages 597-605, December.
    11. B. Dan Wood & Arnold Vedlitz, 2007. "Issue Definition, Information Processing, and the Politics of Global Warming," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(3), pages 552-568, July.
    12. David Konisky & Llewelyn Hughes & Charles Kaylor, 2016. "Extreme weather events and climate change concern," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(4), pages 533-547, February.
    13. Tatyana Deryugina, 2013. "How do people update? The effects of local weather fluctuations on beliefs about global warming," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 118(2), pages 397-416, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefan Linde, 2020. "The Politicization of Risk: Party Cues, Polarization, and Public Perceptions of Climate Change Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(10), pages 2002-2018, October.
    2. Peter D. Howe, 2018. "Perceptions of seasonal weather are linked to beliefs about global climate change: evidence from Norway," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 148(4), pages 467-480, June.
    3. Chad Zanocco & Hilary Boudet & Roberta Nilson & Hannah Satein & Hannah Whitley & June Flora, 2018. "Place, proximity, and perceived harm: extreme weather events and views about climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 349-365, August.
    4. Uji, Azusa & Song, Jaehyun & Dolšak, Nives & Prakash, Aseem, 2024. "Willingness to incur private costs for climate adaptation? Public support for undergrounding electricity transmission lines in California," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    5. Eryu Zhang & Xiaoyu He & Peng Xiao, 2022. "Does Smart City Construction Decrease Urban Carbon Emission Intensity? Evidence from a Difference-in-Difference Estimation in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-16, December.
    6. Andor, Mark A. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Sommer, Stephan, 2018. "Climate Change, Population Ageing and Public Spending: Evidence on Individual Preferences," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 173-183.
    7. Paul M. Lohmann & Andreas Kontoleon, 2023. "Do Flood and Heatwave Experiences Shape Climate Opinion? Causal Evidence from Flooding and Heatwaves in England and Wales," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(1), pages 263-304, October.
    8. Llewelyn Hughes & David M. Konisky & Sandra Potter, 2020. "Extreme weather and climate opinion: evidence from Australia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 723-743, November.
    9. Constantine Boussalis & Travis G. Coan & Mirya R. Holman, 2018. "Climate change communication from cities in the USA," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 173-187, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mason, Charles F. & Wilmot, Neil A., 2024. "On climate fat tails and politics," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    2. Uji, Azusa & Song, Jaehyun & Dolšak, Nives & Prakash, Aseem, 2024. "Willingness to incur private costs for climate adaptation? Public support for undergrounding electricity transmission lines in California," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    3. Llewelyn Hughes & David M. Konisky & Sandra Potter, 2020. "Extreme weather and climate opinion: evidence from Australia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 723-743, November.
    4. Stephanie Shepard & Hilary Boudet & Chad M. Zanocco & Lori A. Cramer & Bryan Tilt, 2018. "Community climate change beliefs, awareness, and actions in the wake of the September 2013 flooding in Boulder County, Colorado," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 8(3), pages 312-325, September.
    5. Joshua A. Basseches & Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo & Maxwell T. Boykoff & Trevor Culhane & Galen Hall & Noel Healy & David J. Hess & David Hsu & Rachel M. Krause & Harland Prechel & J. Timmons Roberts & J, 2022. "Climate policy conflict in the U.S. states: a critical review and way forward," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 170(3), pages 1-24, February.
    6. Donatella Baiardi, 2021. "What do you think about climate change?," Working Papers 477, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2021.
    7. Baiardi, Donatella & Morana, Claudio, 2021. "Climate change awareness: Empirical evidence for the European Union," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    8. Andrew G. Meyer, 2022. "Do economic conditions affect climate change beliefs and support for climate action? Evidence from the US in the wake of the Great Recession," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 64-86, January.
    9. P. Stahlmann-Brown & P. Walsh, 2022. "Soil moisture and expectations regarding future climate: evidence from panel data," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 1-20, March.
    10. Donatella Baiardi, 2021. "What do you think about climate change?," Working Paper series 21-16, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    11. Chad Zanocco & Hilary Boudet & Roberta Nilson & Hannah Satein & Hannah Whitley & June Flora, 2018. "Place, proximity, and perceived harm: extreme weather events and views about climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 349-365, August.
    12. Brown, Pike & Walsh, Patrick & Booth, Pam, 2020. "Environmental signalling & expectations of future drought: Evidence from panel data," 2020 Conference (64th), February 12-14, 2020, Perth, Western Australia 305239, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    13. Amanda Kennard, 2021. "My Brother’s Keeper: Other-regarding preferences and concern for global climate change," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 345-376, April.
    14. Salil D. Benegal, 2018. "The impact of unemployment and economic risk perceptions on attitudes towards anthropogenic climate change," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 8(3), pages 300-311, September.
    15. Crispino, Marta & Loberto, Michele, 2024. "Do people pay attention to climate change? Evidence from Italy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 434-449.
    16. Lea Gärtner & Harald Schoen, 2021. "Experiencing climate change: revisiting the role of local weather in affecting climate change awareness and related policy preferences," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 167(3), pages 1-20, August.
    17. Stefan Linde, 2020. "The Politicization of Risk: Party Cues, Polarization, and Public Perceptions of Climate Change Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(10), pages 2002-2018, October.
    18. Guglielmo Zappalà, 2023. "Drought Exposure and Accuracy: Motivated Reasoning in Climate Change Beliefs," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 85(3), pages 649-672, August.
    19. David M. Konisky & Llewelyn Hughes & Charles H. Kaylor, 2016. "Extreme weather events and climate change concern," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(4), pages 533-547, February.
    20. Lawrence C. Hamilton, 2016. "Public Awareness of the Scientific Consensus on Climate," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(4), pages 21582440166, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:142:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-017-1934-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.