Climate change concerns come rain or shine – A reciprocal causal relationship of perceived weather changes and climate change concerns

AIM: The IPCC notes that climate change is affecting regions across the world, by increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. However, to many people, climate change remains an abstract concept that is... [ view full abstract ]

AIM: The IPCC notes that climate change is affecting regions across the world, by increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. However, to many people, climate change remains an abstract concept that is difficult to understand. Previous cross-sectional studies have suggested that people look to their experiences with extreme weather to inform their climate change concerns, because weather is more salient and directly observable. However, these correlational findings may also be explained by climate change concerns influencing how people look at the weather. Here, we present the first study to directly test the causal relationship between climate change concerns and perceived changes in experienced weather.
METHODS: We conducted a UK-wide longitudinal survey in October 2013, April 2014, and July 2014 (N=487) and collected an additional independent sample in July 2014 (N=1432). At each time point participants were asked about their perceptions of changes in hot and wet weather over the course of their life time, their climate change concerns, and their perceptions of how ‘normal’ the weather in the previous summer had been.
RESULTS: Our cross-lagged structural equation models show bi-directional causal links between perceived weather changes and climate change concerns: As expected, we find that perceiving more extreme weather changes causes climate change concerns. However, we also find that stronger climate change concerns lead to perceiving more extreme weather. Moreover, people who had ‘climate change congruent’ memories of recent weather showed stronger motivational reasoning patterns than people who remember recent weather as incongruent with climate change.
CONCLUSION: People do indeed seem to look to the weather to draw conclusions about climate change, with UK residents’ climate change concerns being driven especially by perceived changes in wet weather. However, those who have stronger climate change concerns are also more likely to interpret the weather as more extreme. We discuss these findings in light of psychological theories and their importance for informing public perceptions and debates about climate change.