Effects of climate change ‘making storms worse’

FOR THE past two weeks, Americans have been gripped by the devastating impact of Hurricane Harvey. This intensified over the weekend with the landfall of Hurricane Irma. The recovery will take months, if not years.

As the focus shifts from recovery to planning for the future, people will undoubtedly focus on climate change. While the science suggests that severe weather will become more frequent thanks to global warming, it is difficult to say global warming caused any specific storm. Scientists are more certain that effects of climate change are making storms like Hurricane Harvey worse.

This raises an awkward political question – do extreme weather events like hurricanes change people’s minds about whether global warming is taking place? Some, like Sarah Posner at The Washington Post, note that millions in Florida are without power, and hope that “these storms will be a wake-up call for Republican voters, if not for their leaders”. Activists and politicians use extreme weather events to push for more action on climate change.

Yet the assumption that extreme weather events will change people’s minds en masse doesn’t have much backing. Our research shows that people who experience severe weather are only modestly more likely to support the types of efforts we need to build resilience to climate change.

In a research article just been published, we set out to find whether people who have experienced more frequent bouts of extreme weather are more likely to support climate adaptation policies than those who have not. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration collects detailed data on the frequency and severity of different kinds of extreme weather, from 122 weather forecasting offices nationwide. We combined this data with questions about climate adaptation policies that we asked in a nationally representative survey.

Our questions mirrored policy proposals on coastal development restrictions, residential water use restrictions, and storm water control measures being adopted or considered for adoption. For example, we asked whether it is a good idea to mandate that the bottom floor of structures be elevated above the highest estimated flood levels. This was based on parts of the San Francisco Bay Plan. We also asked how much effort people thought should be devoted to planning for the impacts of climate change.

We found there was broad support for general adaptation planning. Over 65% supported some level of effort being made to plan for climate change impacts. There were similar levels of support for individual adaptation policies, including among those living in places that would benefit most directly from the adaptation measure in question.

However, we did not find much of a difference between people who had experienced more frequent hurricanes, floods, droughts, and types of extreme weather. – Washington Post

ACTIVISTS AND POLITICIANS USE EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS TO PUSH FOR MORE ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE