Comparing public and scientific extreme event attribution to climate change

Abstract

Extreme event attribution is an active area of scientific research, but public attribution of extreme events to climate change is not well understood – despite its importance to climate change communication and policy. We surveyed a representative sample of the U.S. population (n = 1071) to measure the public’s confidence in attributing five event types to climate change – wildfire, heat, rainfall/flooding, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Our respondents had the highest confidence in attributing wildfires and extreme heat to climate change, and the lowest confidence for hurricanes and tornadoes. Respondent characteristics, such as education level, age, race/ethnicity, political affiliation, and self-reported extreme event impacts, were linked to attribution confidence. Overall, those reporting negative impacts from extreme events had higher levels of attribution confidence. While Republicans on average had lower levels of attribution confidence, we found that self-reported negative event impacts had a moderating effect on attribution confidence among Republicans. Republicans who were more negatively impacted by extreme events had higher levels of attribution confidence compared to Republicans who were less impacted. We also compared the public’s attribution confidence to scientific assessments, developing a measure of attribution alignment. We found that respondents aligned with scientific event attribution for an average of 2 out of 5 extreme event types. While respondent characteristics were less consistently related to attribution alignment overall, Democrats on average had lower alignment. Our study suggests that the public is connecting climate change to extreme weather and making distinctions in attribution levels, but politics and experiences with extreme weather matter. We recommend that scientists and climate change communicators reflect this discernment in discourses about extreme events, climate change, and policy.