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Recent Warmer Winters May Be Cooling Climate Change Concern, NYU and Duke Researchers Conclude
http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2016/04/20/recent-warmer-winters-may-be-cooling-climate-change-concern-nyu-and-duke-researchers-conclude.html[font face=Serif][font size=5]Recent Warmer Winters May Be Cooling Climate Change Concern, NYU and Duke Researchers Conclude[/font]
April 20, 2016
349
[font size=3]The vast majority of Americans have experienced more favorable weather conditions over the past 40 years, researchers from New York University and Duke University have found. The trend is projected to reverse over the course of the coming century, but that shift may come too late to spur demands for policy responses to address climate change.
The analysis, published in the journal Nature, found that 80 percent of Americans live in counties where the weather is more pleasant than four decades ago. Winter temperatures have risen substantially throughout the United States since the 1970s, but summers have not become markedly more uncomfortable. The result is that weather has shifted toward a temperate year-round climate that Americans have been demonstrated to prefer.
“Rising temperatures are ominous symptoms of global climate change, but Americans are experiencing them at times of the year when warmer days are welcomed,” explains Patrick J. Egan, an associate professor in NYU’s Wilf Family Department of Politics who authored the study with Duke’s Megan Mullin.
However, he and Mullin, an associate professor at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, discovered a looming shift in these patterns when they used long-term projections of temperature changes to evaluate future weather Americans are likely to experience. According to these estimates, nearly 90 percent of the U.S. public may experience weather at the end of the 21st century that is less preferable than weather in the recent past.
…[/font][/font]
April 20, 2016
349
[font size=3]The vast majority of Americans have experienced more favorable weather conditions over the past 40 years, researchers from New York University and Duke University have found. The trend is projected to reverse over the course of the coming century, but that shift may come too late to spur demands for policy responses to address climate change.
The analysis, published in the journal Nature, found that 80 percent of Americans live in counties where the weather is more pleasant than four decades ago. Winter temperatures have risen substantially throughout the United States since the 1970s, but summers have not become markedly more uncomfortable. The result is that weather has shifted toward a temperate year-round climate that Americans have been demonstrated to prefer.
“Rising temperatures are ominous symptoms of global climate change, but Americans are experiencing them at times of the year when warmer days are welcomed,” explains Patrick J. Egan, an associate professor in NYU’s Wilf Family Department of Politics who authored the study with Duke’s Megan Mullin.
However, he and Mullin, an associate professor at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, discovered a looming shift in these patterns when they used long-term projections of temperature changes to evaluate future weather Americans are likely to experience. According to these estimates, nearly 90 percent of the U.S. public may experience weather at the end of the 21st century that is less preferable than weather in the recent past.
…[/font][/font]
http://www.umu.se/english/about-umu/news-events/news/newsdetailpage/mild-weather-since-1970s-worrying-for-the-american-view-on-climate-threat.cid267482
[font face=Serif][font size=5]Mild weather since 1970s worrying for the American view on climate threat[/font]
[font size=4][2016-04-20] In a chronicle published in Nature, researcher Joacim Rocklöv at Umeå University reasons around the findings of a new research study showing that American’s scepticism towards climate issues are partly due to the improved weather. The cognitive dissonance taking place between self-experienced changes in weather and the long-term threat can explain why people have a hard time making climate conscious decisions.[/font]
[font size=3]In the chronicle Misconceptions of global catastrophe, Joacim Rocklöv, associate professor and epidemiologist at the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, discusses the findings of a study published in the same issue of Nature. In the study, researchers have studied US migration patterns since the 1970s. The research study draws the conclusion that the net effect of climate change so far might have been experienced as primarily positive and the often climate sceptical view of the Americans is then undermined by self-experienced, seemingly positive effects.
The trend appears to change in a future climate, where a majority of Americans are expected to experience a worsening of the climate. According to Rocklöv, these insights might be useful to motivate an increased climate awareness among the European populations.
In regards to the domestic US migration patterns since the 1970s, the study suggests it is possible to draw the conclusion that Americans generally dislike living in areas with hot and moist summers, and prefer mild winters. Since the changes in weather in the US from the 1970s and onwards has produced milder winters, the development is at large seen as positive. One weakness with the study, as Rocklöv sees it, is how it fails to take into account the effects of extreme weathers on people’s attitudes to climate, which are often important even only in the short-term.
…[/font][/font]
[font size=4][2016-04-20] In a chronicle published in Nature, researcher Joacim Rocklöv at Umeå University reasons around the findings of a new research study showing that American’s scepticism towards climate issues are partly due to the improved weather. The cognitive dissonance taking place between self-experienced changes in weather and the long-term threat can explain why people have a hard time making climate conscious decisions.[/font]
[font size=3]In the chronicle Misconceptions of global catastrophe, Joacim Rocklöv, associate professor and epidemiologist at the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, discusses the findings of a study published in the same issue of Nature. In the study, researchers have studied US migration patterns since the 1970s. The research study draws the conclusion that the net effect of climate change so far might have been experienced as primarily positive and the often climate sceptical view of the Americans is then undermined by self-experienced, seemingly positive effects.
The trend appears to change in a future climate, where a majority of Americans are expected to experience a worsening of the climate. According to Rocklöv, these insights might be useful to motivate an increased climate awareness among the European populations.
In regards to the domestic US migration patterns since the 1970s, the study suggests it is possible to draw the conclusion that Americans generally dislike living in areas with hot and moist summers, and prefer mild winters. Since the changes in weather in the US from the 1970s and onwards has produced milder winters, the development is at large seen as positive. One weakness with the study, as Rocklöv sees it, is how it fails to take into account the effects of extreme weathers on people’s attitudes to climate, which are often important even only in the short-term.
…[/font][/font]
