In the wake of devastating hurricanes, a majority of Americans now believe climate change contributes to extreme weather
Younger adults are much more likely to attribute a role to climate change in the intensity of major storms, and their opinions appear to have shifted sharply over the past decade
A majority of Americans say that global climate change contributed to the severity of recent hurricanes in Florida and Texas, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. That marks a significant shift of opinion from a dozen years ago, when a majority of the public dismissed the role of global warming and said such severe weather events just happen from time to time.
In a 2005 Post-ABC poll, taken a month after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf coast and devastated New Orleans, 39 per cent of Americans said they believed climate change helped to fuel the intensity of hurricanes. Today, 55 per cent believe that.
The shift may in part reflect scientists’ increasing confidence – and their increasing amount of data – in linking certain extreme weather events such as hurricanes to climate change. Many researchers have been unequivocal that while hotter oceans, rising seas and other factors are not the sole cause of any event, the warming climate is contributing to more intense storms and more frequent, more crippling storm surges and flooding.
“[Hurricane] Harvey was not caused by climate change, yet its impacts – the storm surge and especially the extreme rainfall – very likely worsened due to human-caused global warming,” Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said in a statement after the hurricane.
In a follow-up email to The Washington Post last month, Rahmstorf said that the explanation is just basic physics: The atmosphere holds more water vapour when it is warmer, setting the stage for more rain.
Yet for many Americans, the role of climate change has become as much about political beliefs as scientific findings.
