URI researcher: Weather fluctuations cause people to seek information on climate change
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Results vary by political ideology, education levels
KINGSTON, R.I. – July 16, 2014 – A University of Rhode Island researcher analyzed Internet search trends and weather patterns and has concluded that people across the United States seek information about climate change when they experience unusual or severe weather events in their area. But findings differed based on political ideology and education levels.
“When local weather conditions are consistent with the predictions of climate change – above average heat, drought or warmer winters, for instance – then people go online and type in ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’ to learn more,” said Corey Lang, URI assistant professor of environmental economics. “It’s a confirmation that people are connecting weather anomalies to climate change.”
His results will be published this week in the journal Climatic Change.
Lang used Google Trends to collect data on how often people in 205 media markets searched the Internet for terms like “climate change” and “global warming” from January 2004 to May 2013. While search activity increased during weather fluctuations consistent with climate change predictions, it also increased in some areas during weather events inconsistent with climate science.
“One possibility is that when weather is inconsistent with climate change, climate science deniers go online in higher numbers seeking to confirm their prior beliefs,” Lang said. “It’s also possible that weather anomalies of any kind spark people to think about weather and climate. We can only speculate about their reasons.”
When Lang compared search data in regions of the country with differing political views and education levels, his results suggest that some groups may see climate change differently. For example, Democratic leaning regions and those with higher education levels were more likely to seek information about climate change when average summer temperatures were above normal, whereas those in Republican and less educated areas sought climate change information when they experienced extreme heat.
“When it’s just a warmer than usual month, more Democratic and well educated areas are picking up on that signal, but it’s a spike in temperature over one or more days that Republican and less-educated areas are keying in to climate change,” Lang said. “It may suggest that different types of people have different perceptions of what kind of weather defines climate change.”
The URI economist said that it is difficult to draw sweeping conclusions based solely on Internet search data, since it is impossible to know the motivations of individuals conducting the searches. But he said it is a good sign that people from across the geographic, political and education spectrums are making the connection between weather fluctuations and climate change and are seeking more information about it.
“There isn’t this intransigence that is often played up,” he said. “It’s much more dynamic.”
The next step in Lang’s research is to learn what happens after people search for information on climate change.
“There are a lot of open questions about what these results mean,” he said. “What are people doing with this information? Are they purchasing energy efficient appliances? Are they taking measures to improve their situation in the face of the changing climate? Self-motivated information seeking is a good first step, but what do they do next?”
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From Springerlink:
What do Google searches tell us about our climate change fears?
Political ideology, education levels affect when people search for climate information
Republicans search the Net for information about the weather, climate change and global warming during extremely hot or cold spells. Democrats google these terms when they experience changes in the average temperatures. These are some of the surprising findings from a study by Corey Lang of the University of Rhode Island in the US, published in Springer’s journal Climatic Change.
He tracked how the temperature fluctuations and rainfall that Americans experience daily in their own cities make them scour the Internet in search of information about climate change and global warming. To do so, he used data from Google Trends, local weather stations and election results.
Google Trends aggregates all Google searches that are made, and measures how popular a specific search term is. Users can fine tune this to be specific to a particular place (such as a country or city) and time (such as monthly or on a specific date). Lang specifically checked how often, when and where citizens in 205 cities in the US used the search terms “global warming,” “climate change” and “weather.” The terms “drought” and “flood” were also included because increases in these natural phenomena are important predicted impacts of climate change. Monthly statistics were collected for the period from January 2004 to May 2013. Lang then matched them with local weather station data, as well as the 2008 presidential election results in Dave Leip’s “Atlas of Presidential Elections.”
Lang found that search activity increased when extreme heat was felt in summer, when no rain fell over extended periods, and when there were fewer extreme cold snaps in winter. Such weather fluctuations are consistent with projected climate change. Interestingly though, searches also increased when average winter and spring temperatures dropped – events that are inconsistent with global warming. Lang believes this could mean that people who observe unusual extreme weather conditions are genuinely interested in learning more about climate change. It could, however, also mean that deniers, who experience an unusually cool winter, go online to confirm their skeptical views that the world is not really growing warmer.
People from varying political and educational backgrounds reach for their devices at different times to check out information on climate change. Republicans and people from less educated areas do more relevant searches during periods of extreme temperatures, while Democrats and residents of well-educated areas do so when they experience changes in average temperatures.
“Weather fluctuations have an impact on climate change related search behavior, however not always in ways that are consistent with the impacts of climate change. And the research suggests that different types of people experience weather differently or have different perceptions about what type of weather defines climate change, ” concludes Lang.
Reference: Lang, C. (2014). Do Weather Fluctuations Cause People to Seek Information about Climate Change? Climatic Change. DOI 10.1007/s10584
And we think of ourselves as an intelligent species…
This paper gives a heads up that delusional people tend to vote democrat.
The one with the d-word is biased?
They overlooked the obvoius. First because our largely leftist media will hit the streets interviewing the “man on the street” every time the temp spikes. This is followed by the drone democrats to hit the internet to confirm what they already dogmatically believe.
The “uneducated” republicans do searches of long term trends to confirm what they and their common sense tells them. The media is sensationalizing nonsense.
Democrat. Republican. There’s a difference? Both sides have completely lost the ability to debate rationally. Both sides can do no more than cast slurs and resort immediately to name calling and blame laying. As for “educated,” Democrats who are “educated” are much more likely to be “indoctrinated” rather than educated. And my experience tells me Republicans are just as willfully ignorant. Party lines do nothing but make idiots of Americans. People would eat barf if their respective party told them it was good. It’s a “team” mentality. My team won! My team lost 🙁 I can no longer see the difference between LEFT and RIGHT.
My normal first response to an extreme weather event that has reported as “unprecedented” is to research the internet to see if it really is. Haven’t found one yet that truly was.
Udar says:
July 17, 2014 at 10:28 pm
Without reading the study, my guess would be census data. In addition to the decadal survey distributed to every US household, the US Census Bureau also gathers monthly employment data as part of their “Current Population Survey” report, which includes:
[emphasis added]
Republicans search the Net for information about the weather, climate change and global warming during extremely hot or cold spells. Democrats google these terms when they experience changes in the average temperatures.
Need not read any more, Dems cannot detect sub-degree changes over 5-6 generations. BS!
Dr. Lang, Saul Alinsky would be so proud…
By the by, I’m independent and I go to http://www.wattsupwiththat.com whenever there’s a notable change in the weather. Then I usually post a link to any article that’s posted. Wink wink.
There seems to be a resistance by some posting in this thread to the idea that democrats are better educated or smarter than Republicans.
However the real world data supports this contention strongly.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/finding-the-next-einstein/201311/who-s-smarter-republicans-and-democrats-in-congress
Research has indicated that individuals who are politically liberal are more likely to have higher ability than those who are politically conservative in America (Kanazawa, 2010) and Britain (Deary, Batty, & Gale, 2008). However, this finding pertained to voters rather than political leaders those people had elected. This study demonstrates that in America, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to have a higher percentage of Senate and House members in the top 1% of cognitive ability and Democrats had a higher ability and education level, on average, than Republicans.
A Google search under any topics like Global Warming, Climate Change etc. are by far in favour of the warmist agenda. The SEO’s are not there by chance. They have been systematically stacked to ensure differing views are crowded out.
“weather inconsistent with climate change/global warming. …”
Uh, since every possible weather situation is considered “consistent with climate change/global warming” according to the Warmist/Alarmists, they must mean that an “inconsistent” day would be one without weather.
False conclusion, I use WUWT reference pages daily and mix that with scans of the posts to see Tisdale insights, other contributors, and various compiled threats to science from science policy bullying and other useful idiots.
“Interestingly though, searches also increased when average winter and spring temperatures dropped – events that are inconsistent with global warming. Lang believes this could mean that people who observe unusual extreme weather conditions are genuinely interested in learning more about climate change. ”
Lang obviously must be from one of those uneducated republicain demographic areas, he is not even aware that the recent polar vortex and harsh winter was caused by global warming.
He’s obviously biased.
Besides the gratuitous use of the pejorative term “denier,” Lang’s method is questionable. He models Google trends data and political leanings from 2010 census data. So he’s not actually quantifying the association of search words and political ideology at the individual level. The uncertainties that come flooding in with this aggregated approach make the results far less certain than the paper would have us believe.
The sentence about Democrats and Republicans should read : Democratic leaning regions and those with higher education levels but with no real life experience of nature were more likely to seek information about climate change when average summer temperatures were above normal, whereas those in Republican and less educated areas but with common sense and a keen interest in nature and our environment sought climate change information when they experienced extreme heat.
“The URI economist said that it is difficult to draw sweeping conclusions based solely on Internet search data, since it is impossible to know the motivations of individuals conducting the searches. But ….”
But he does anyway. What a pro.
“For example, Democratic leaning regions and those with higher education levels were more likely to seek information about climate change when average summer temperatures were above normal, whereas those in Republican and less educated areas sought climate change information when they experienced extreme heat.”
See
http://reason.com/archives/2014/06/13/are-conservatives-dumber-than-liberals
and
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289614000373
“…Individuals who identify as Republican have slightly higher verbal intelligence than those who identify as Democrat (2–5 IQ points), and that individuals who supported the Republican Party in elections have slightly higher verbal intelligence than those who supported the Democratic Party (2 IQ points)”
That “research” paper is NOT breaking out “Republicans”: “Deniers”, “Democrats” and
“Gullibles”, it’s falling into the ” Epidemiologis Fallacy”.
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=8108
“…The epidemiologist fallacy occurs when an epidemiologist says or implies X causes Y, but when the epidemiologist never actually meets, measures, or monitors X, though everybody pretends he has…..Examples
Global warming causes cataracts in babies
The peer-reviewed paper “A Population-Based Case–Control Study of Extreme Summer Temperature and Birth Defects” appeared in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives (2012 October; 120(10): 1443–1449) by Alissa Van Zutphen et alia. It purportedly investigated birth defects in New York residents (the Y) and heat waves during pregnancy (X), which were claimed to increase in frequency and severity once global warming finally strikes. “We found positive and consistent associations between multiple heat indicators during the relevant developmental window and congenital cataracts [in newborns]“. Various statistical measures of correlation were attested to, and if the reader wasn’t careful she would decide to stay out of the heat lest her unborn child develop congenital cataracts.
But exposure of women to heat during their “relevant development windows” was never measured on any woman. There was no X. But there was a W: the daily air temperature at “18 first-order airport weather stations”. Women were assigned the temperature at the stations closest to where they listed their residence at the time of birth for just those days thought to be crucial to fetal development. Nobody knows where the women actually were during these days: it may have been near the assigned airport, or it could have been Saskatchewan, or perhaps in some cool building (“we were unable to incorporate air conditioner use data”). This paper was taken seriously by the press. More research is needed.
Fourth of July parade attendance turns people into Republicans
Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott and Bocconi University Assistant Professor Andreas Madestam wondered how it could be that so many innocent Americans turned into Republicans (their Y). They suspected Fourth of July parade attendance (X). Exposure to raw, unfiltered patriotism would take its inevitable toll and cause people to turn wistful at the mention of Ronald Reagan. They speculated, “Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation’s political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party.”
It was widely reported that X caused Y. Only it wasn’t so. Yanagizawa-Drott and Madestam instead created a W. They gathered precipitation data from 1920-1990 in towns where study participants claimed to have lived when young. If it rained on the relevant Fourths of July, the authors claimed the participants did not go to a parade, because they assumed all parades would be canceled. If it did not rain, they claimed participants did go to a parade, because all towns invariably have parades on clear days, and if there is a parade one must attend. Nowhere was actual parade attendance (X) measured. And just think: if their hypothesis were true, San Francisco would be teeming with Republicans because it almost never rains there on the Fourth of July.”
Gary said at 5:44 am
People would eat barf if their respective party told them it was good.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
But seriously, which party is telling us what or how much we shall or shall not eat or drink?
“Lang found that search activity increased when extreme heat was felt in summer, when no rain fell over extended periods, and when there were fewer extreme cold snaps in winter. ”
Well if that’s what he “found” he should take a serious look at this method.
Can you really imagine a surge of people saying; ” hey, it’s longer than normal since we’ve had a cold snap, that’s strange, I’d better google and find out what the cause is.”
BS ! He is finding what he sets out to find.
Hi everyone,
I’m the author of the paper being discussed here. I’ve enjoyed reading some comments (especially, “I bet Lang did a lot of drinking in college”), though haven’t read them all.
One thing I wanted to clear up is the notion that I’m equating political ideology and education levels. Not at all true. First, a caveat about any conclusions that can be drawn. The data I’m using are aggregate, essentially at the metropolitan area level. So I do not know what how individuals with differing levels of education or differing political ideologies respond to weather changes. What I can infer is how individuals living in metro areas of differing education levels and differing politics respond to weather changes. In the model, I interact metro characteristics of % with college degree and % Democrat separately. That is, the model allows these characteristics to have no effect or opposite effects. However, the results suggest that the effects align for metros with a large percentage of college graduates and a large percentage of Democrats.
I agree with Logoswrench…MSM is likely the driver, and I would bet there is a direct correlation between the number of articles, and slant of those articles, on a given weather event to the number of Google searches.
e.g. The only place one learns of “record” weather events is where? Through a published media source. And, it is a well known and established theoretical fact (;-)) that 97% of media reports now link weather events to climate change…I’m sure I could publish a paper on that…if only I could get the funding…
C Lang says:
July 18, 2014 at 6:32 am
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Welcome to WUWT.
I will bet almost anything that over the time period studied that the number of people looking at anything related to global warming has dropped dramatically and that Mr Lang would never report that in his article. The more these morons write the less people will buy [their] bull.