Poll: Public more confident connecting increasing heat, wildfires with climate change than other extreme weather events, study finds

Research finds that Americans are more confident blaming climate change for extreme heat and wildfires than for other types of extreme weather such as flooding, tornadoes, and hurricanes. The recent study found that politics and personal experience played significant roles in people’s responses: Self-identified Republicans were less likely than Democrats to attribute extreme weather events to climate change, though Republicans who had personally experienced negative impacts from extreme weather events were more likely to link them to climate change than those who hadn’t. Looking at extreme weather events across the board, 83% of survey respondents said there is some link between these events and anthropogenic, or human-caused, climate change. About 17% thought climate change had nothing to do with extreme weather. More than 47% of people were “very” or “extremely confident” in linking increased wildfires to climate change, and roughly 42% of people were very or extremely confident linking extreme heat to climate change. 

See this link for the press release about the research.