How weather experiences strengthen climate opinions in Europe

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Previous research has shown that we believe more in the reality of climate change when we experience warmer-than-usual temperatures. This reflects a psychological process in which easily accessible information from personal weather experiences is used as a heuristic to form climate opinions. This paper replicates and extends upon a research design and results of Egan and Mullin to provide the first systematic European study of the Local Warming Effect. Based on data from 12 European countries, the analysis shows that when objective temperatures increase by two standard deviations (5 C) relative to normal temperatures, climate opinions are strengthened by around 0.5–1.0 percentage points – comparable to the effect of a full step to the left on a 0–10 political ideology scale.
Original languageEnglish
JournalWest European Politics
Volume44
Issue number7
Pages (from-to)1604-1618
Number of pages15
ISSN0140-2382
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

ID: 248202502