EXPERIENCING THE WEATHER: PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF CHANGES IN LOCAL WEATHER PATTERNS

INTRODUCTION In nations that rely on representative political systems, policies designed to address climate change will ultimately depend on sustained public support. By design, representative political systems punish politicians for taking costly actions that are not high priorities for their constituents, making it very difficult to align the legislative and bureaucratic processes necessary for effective policy change (Wilson, 1980; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993; Baumgartner and Jones 2004). Efforts to address climate change through reductions in greenhouse gas emissions provides a challenging case for garnering and retaining public support, because the science is complex and subject to political controversy, and solutions are potentially quite costly. How, then, does the public come to perceive climate change as a pressing issue requiring potentially costly policy responses? In part, the answer may be that people draw inferences about changes taking place in the broader climate from observations of their own local weather patterns. Unusually hot summers and milder winters, prolonged periods of drought, or unusually frequent flooding would seem to provide the kinds of local weather “signals” to members of the public that the broader climate is changing.1 On the other hand, is it plausible that other factors – such as individual level characteristics, political views, or more general concerns about the environment – do more to explain perceptions of weather patterns. The relative weight given to these factors by members of the public in reaching conclusions about changes in the weather are very likely to influence support for policies designed to address climate change. * Corresponding author address: Hank Jenkins-Smith, Univ. of Oklahoma, Dept. of Political Science, Norman, OK, 73072; e-mail: . 1 For purposes of this paper, we set aside the question of whether the public should interpret local weather changes as evidence of climate change, and focus instead on whether the public does perceive real changes in local weather patterns. This paper addresses the question of what kinds of changes members of the American public perceive to be taking place in their local weather, and tests a series of hypotheses concerning why they hold these perceptions. Using a dataset consisting of interviews with a large sample of the American public coupled with geographically specific measures of temperature and precipitation change, we are able to evaluate the relationship between perceptions of weather change and actual local weather patterns. In addition, the survey data include measures of individual level characteristics (age, education level, gender, income) as well as ideology, partisanship and environmental views. Thus the data permit testing of rival hypotheses concerning the origin of the American publicsʼ perceptions of weather change. The next section of the paper describes the data used in our analysis, followed by an overview of perceived weather changes and their correlation with the broader perception of global climate change. As will be evident, perceptions of local weather patterns are highly predictive of Americansʼ beliefs about the occurrence of, and risks posed by, global climate change. The next section presents and tests a series of hypotheses about how the survey respondents arrive at their perceptions of local temperature and precipitation changes. The final section provides discussion of the implications of our findings for the evolution of public perceptions of the weather, and for public willingness to support policies designed to address climate change. 2. DATA The objective of this study is to assess Americanʼs perspectives on temperature and precipitation changes over the past several years. The data employed in the study are derived from three sources: (1) survey intervie