URI researcher: Weather fluctuations cause people to seek information on climate change
Media Contact: Todd McLeish, 
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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
BallBounces says: “So, there is now scientific proof that climate changes causes Google searches?”
… and Google searches use huge amounts of energy , that release CO2 and cause climate change/global warming/ herpes.
If all these ” Democrats and residents of well-educated areas ” don’t stop this irresponsible behaviour we will soon reach a tipping point in climate from which it will be impossible for the Earth to recover !!!!
We MUST act now !
“His results will be published this week in the journal Climatic Change.”
Big clue 😉
How many objective , sceptical scientists would submit a paper to a journal whose title already presumes climate change.
Let me guess : at least 97.3% of papers published in this journal are NOT about natural variability
Hi , C Lang . :)))
Please prove how Google knows a searchers education level . Without this proof , the study is just opinion .
Or self serving propaganda….
He knows [they’re] more educated because [they’re] his friends and are just like him.
Silly uneducated dumb people.
Anthony Watts says:
Dueling “weather is not climate” press releases – see if you can spot the politically biased one
Oh, I know! I know!
It’s the one that says this:
Clearly, this guy is a politically biased denier. ‘Cause 97% of everybody knows that there is no such thing as “weather events inconsistent with climate science.” According to climate science™ , ‘global warming’ causes everything.
🙂
“Self-motivated information seeking is a good first step, but what do they do next?”
Once people start “self-motivated information seeking” they are more likely to find out what is really happening , rather having their brains force-fed with regurgitated rat-shit by MSM.
sure it’s “a good first step”.
God damn, they may even start thinking for themselves after that. could be dangerous in some of those less educated and republican areas.
I’ve heard this BS many times before, conservatives are dumb and uneducated while liberals are smart and educated. I spent a lifetime working in the scientific community as an engineer and my experience is just the opposite.
saltspringson says:
July 18, 2014 at 6:38 am
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.
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Ah the old, uncontrolled variable problem.
so I guess more of those uneducated and republican voters are dumb enough to watch TV, and that accounts for the peak searches following weather events that MSM pump as being due to climate change.
From the first article, Lang is quoted:
“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.”
And:
From the second:
“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.
What do those statements say?
It’s alright to confuse climate and weather if it supports the “consensus” claims about anomalous weather born of human caused climate change? That’s what it seems to me.
Lang implies that a month’s average temperature is somehow more intelligently attributed to climate, whereas a record high spike is not. Neither one is climate, DUH!
Copy of the journal article available at:
http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=enre_facpubs&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fas_ylo%3D2014%26q%3DDo%2BWeather%2BFluctuations%2BCause%2BPeople%2Bto%2BSeek%2BInformation%2B%26hl%3Den%26as_sdt%3D0%2C29#search=%22Do%20Weather%20Fluctuations%20Cause%20People%20Seek%20Information%22
I marvel at the use of the term “climate science denier” rather than “climate change denier”.
I have to question how Lang’s demographic breakdown squares with recent findings by a Yale professor that Tea Party supporters are more scientifically literate than non-tea party population?
http://www.ijreview.com/2013/10/87474-yale-professors-surprising-discovery-tea-party-supporters-scientifically-literate/
‘When Lang compared … data in regions … 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.’
May I inform you, Dear Cory, that the hypothesis of AGW stipulates that the greatest impact occurs in the coldest and driest air masses, and during wintertime, not during summertime, so let’s blow off your self serving and insulting hypothesis that “those with higher education levels were more likely to seek information about climate change when average summer temperatures were above normal,…”
While I’m writing about your self serving hypothesis, Dear Cory, might I recommend that before you entertain yourself too much with that hypothesis that you spend just a wee amount of time delving into the history of the republic in which you live. The Founders of this country had no intention of instituting a two party system. They thought it would lead to the “mischiefs of faction.” It was the feud between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton that created it. Might I also inform you that Jefferson considered himself a man of science: “Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme delight.” And, might I also inform you that Alexander Hamilton was essentially a man of banking, was Treasury Secretary under Washington, and was responsible for the creation of Wall Street in New York. And, while the Democrat and Republican parties did not exist in name at that time, could that history possibly be the reason the Democrats have come to be associated as the party of science and the intelligentsia (whether it’s fully true or not), and the Republicans as the party of business and banking (again, whether it’s fully true or not)?
And, before you act too prideful Mr. Cory, might I remind you that Jefferson was a slave owner and Hamilton was an abolitionist.
MSM = main stream media?
I don’t think it’s MSM driving the results. The reason being is I include month-by-year fixed effects in the model, which controls for national trends in searches and weather. So seemingly if a national news outlet runs a story about a heat wave and people all over the country seek info about global warming, then that event/behavior will not enter the results. Local media, however, could be part of the mechanism.
The pretense of scholarliness and objectivity is strong with this one.
The connection between Democrats and the knee-jerk, irrational Belief that man is somehow responsible for climate change, by which they now mean any type of “unusual” weather is well-known. Mass hysteria is an interesting phenomenon. Perhaps Mr. Lang would like to study that instead. If that irrational Belief is connected somehow to those with “higher educations”, then that would tend to be more damning of our institutions of “higher learning” than anything else. Again, an interesting subject for examination.
C. Lang. Your use of the term “denier” marks you as biased and, thus, raises doubt as to your objectivity. You will have to do a lot more explaining than what you have done in your comment to earn a modicum of credibility after using that word.
FYI, there are plenty of educated people who think the science is not settled, and plenty of Democrats, as well, who think the science is not settled. Nobody who has thought about climate for even a few minutes denies that climate changes, and must be changing. What has not been proven scientifically is what, if any, effect man has on climate change.
Certainly, if you have kept up with the IPCC reports, you will note that their enthusiasm for AGW has waned. Their models cannot hindcast accurately.
Their analysis of the feasibility impacting climate change through CO2 reductions is amateurish, at best. Australia kicked out their green government and repealed their leading-edge carbon tax laws after it was pointed out that the CO2 emission mitigation resulting from their carbon tax would be insignificant. The IPCC is not leading with science. They are leading with politics.
I believe it was Bacon who said “Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.” If you substitute the word “consensus” for “books” in his statement, you can see that science is not being served when people speak of the consensus for AGW. There was consensus that the universe orbited the Earth in Galileo’s day. I will grant that consensus forms when the proof is made clear. The IPCC’s proof is laughable. Computer models that cannot hindcast. Extreme weather events that are not unprecedented, even in the years befor CO2 levels stared rising. Ditto for glacial melting.
Where is the proof?
C Lang says:
July 18, 2014 at 6:32 am
Welcome here.
You have been strongly criticized in many of the above comments.
My challenge to you. Respond to each criticism and PROVE you are (1) who you claim you are with the credentials that “we” should respect. That is, “Why should we listen to you?” What qualifies you to make the claims you say you made in your paper? What IS your exact response to each criticism of your techniques and methods and research protocols and exact statistical and search process? I don’t make google searches about “climate change” … WUWT HAS better resources already listed. “I” don’t search for nonsense written by paid propagandist employed by the climate change industry – I check the Antarctic sea ice extents each day. I check the energy reflected by this year’s record HIGH Antarctic sea ice extents each day using my own spreadsheet corrected for the actual sea ice extents and today’s actual TOA radiation level. I don’t look up TV shows on extreme weather – I write responses to false claims about the climate based on the actual temperature patterns and ocean currents.
Don’t be shy! “We can handle it.” Some of us are actually not “uneducated republicans” after all …
We’uns here are just a bunch of them there “educated republicans” with advanced degrees in and many classes in math and physics past just the basic stuff: numerical analysis, Bessel functions and linear algebra and transforms, chemistry, physics, particle physics, engineering (structural steel, machining, welding and casting, foundations, stress/strain/metalurgy, crystal growth and heat treatment, stress, strain, dynamics, statics, nucleat fusion, nuclear fission operations and reactor analysis, saturated/superheated/subcooled fluid flow and gas-fluid heat exchange, computational hydrodynamics, computation nuclear dynamics, finite element analysis, statistics, programming, radiative and convective heat transfer, thermal fission and high-speed particle radiation, weather and climate, ocean circulation and ocean chemistry, ice physics, orbital physics, electrical engineering and thermodynamics, geology, geochemistry, ocean sound wave propagation, and a few others. And that’s just me. 8<) Almost EVERY reader here is much more qualified than I in his or her own field. And I admire their proven abilities and their conclusions and observations i their fields much more than you are telling us to admire your claimed ability but unsubstantiated performance as an "educated democrat" ….
And, by the way. You are wrong.
C Lang says:July 18, 2014 at 6:32 am
[…]What I can infer is how individuals living in metro areas of differing education levels and differing politics respond to weather changes.
It would be interesting to look at people whose lives are dependent on the weather, and live in it every day, rather than those who only have to deal with what they wear for the day.
1. If you – a self-claimed highly educated democrat – do not know what the term MSM means, you have proved both your bias, your lack of knowledge, and your ignorance of anything outside of your little isolated, insulated cocoon of intellectual ignorance and self-feedback prejudices.
2. By asking the question, you have, however, been courageous enough to admit you do not know a fundamental term used millions of time every day by non-democrat liberal elites. And, by establishing that you at least “did ask the question” you indicate that you might be capable of learning. Maybe.
What about people who aren’t brainwashed by either party and look about climate change when it’s abnormally cold?
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/view/national.php?prod=RER
Low temperature records broken by the thousands all over the place. 1993 there was an El Niño that faded away before it was official. Winter of 1993-94 was brutal in the eastern half of the nation. This was back when the Pacific Ocean was in warm phase. Now it’s 21 years later and in a cold phase. The big Q is how brutal this winter will be.
How can anyone get so brain washed by political parties? How? Years ago citizens had guts and did not beat around the bush about dumping a greedy, corrupted shyt party and starting another. Now we just act like we have no choice but pick lesser of two evils. There are no good guys anymore, no matter what they tell ya. There never will be until campaign finance reform, etc.
http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/03/27/the-origins-of-green-liberalism/
What was your “correction” for the fact that EVERY urban area voted democrat since the early 90’s? How many years’ data did you use the red-county/blue county election results?
Don’t claim “you modeled it.” Show us exactly what you modeled and how you calculated it.
I wonder what correlations could be cooked up with extensive urban-based media coverage of earthquake swarms, beached whales, fish kills, and selected glacier melt or Greenland photo journalism/science.
Mr. Lang, I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you call people climate science deniers. What I mean is, since there has yet to be a single climate computer model that predicted the current temperature plateau, continued belief in the efficacy of such models would seem to fit your description. After all, if the climate science available gets it wrong every time, it seems that believing in it regardless is, at best, unscientific. However, from the context of your article, it’s obvious that you are referring to everyone who questions such models as the actual deniers. This seems a glaring contradiction, and I was wondering if you could address it.
You claim to be a “climate economics” “professor” …
If so, I can make the assumption that you know something about the effect of climate on economics, right? (What you know may or may not be right, but I do need to verify that you claim to know something about the effect of climate on economics, he asked sarcastically, that is. Politely, but sarcastically to be sure.)
OK.
Fine.
What is the economic “cost” of the 25,000 people killed each of the last three years in the UK due to deliberately-high energy prices “caused” by YOU by YOUR fear of a potential global warming event in the year 2100?
What is the economic benefit you calculate – and how did you calculate it? – for the BENEFIT of a 2 degree increase in global average temperatures between now and the year 2100? More food, more fuel, more fodder, more feed, more farm land, more feast, more fish, more plankton, more EVERYTHING for the next 86 years. And – since there is no “harm” (no “cost”) of a 0-2 degree increase in global average temperature, there is only profit, right? Come on – Give me your net present value, your interest rate assumption for 86 years, your calculation of each benefit from global warming for 86 years!
Now, what is YOUR calculation for benefits of greater CO2 levels the next 86 years? Of greater energy use for 86 years? Of more fresh water and more sewage pipes and sewage treatment and more transportation and more bridges and more refrigerators to store food, and more food processing plants, and more farms and less manual labor and less disease and less starvation and less wood burning and peat smoke fires and less people using dried manure to cook their food without soap, water, and electricity after having to walk 4 hours each day to get a bucket of dirty water?
That is, after all, WHAT YOU ARE DEMANDING. YOU are the one demanding that people die to prevent your so-called “global warming” ….
Resourceguy says:
July 18, 2014 at 8:11 am
I wonder what correlations could be cooked up with extensive urban-based media coverage of earthquake swarms, beached whales, fish kills, and selected glacier melt or Greenland photo journalism/science.
I think this is a great idea. I would encourage you and others to take a look at Google Trends. It a really fun website. You could try and do your own analysis or even replicate mine.
In response to others, I will not debate the science of climate change. That could go on for weeks and likely lead to no changes. However, I’m happy to try and answer questions about my study. Though it’s difficult to keep track of what has been asked (or claimed) because this appears to be quite an active thread. I think several misconceptions could be cleared up by reading the text of the main article. There you will find all the details about data construction and modeling assumptions. For instance, For political ideology, I used presidential vote returns from the 2008 election. While cities do typically lean Democrat, my data include not just the largest cities, but many more – 205 total. So there are metro areas from across the spectrum.
[The practice of this web site – which has worked well for each of the past 1,300,000 replies that it has been tried – is for the writer (you) to copy and paste at least the person’s name and date-time-group of his/her comment, copy-and-paste the words or sentences being discussed, and surround the quoted words with blockquote html brackets. The writer (you in this case) then adds a correction, agreement, rebuttal, reference, link or correction. .mod]
@C Lang – I am not crazy about your choice of words (but then the stereotype of the scientist with different color socks comes to mind – as being representative of not thinking about other things, so I will give you a pass on thinking before choosing words), But I appreciate your willingness to engage about your own study.
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I’d like to see such a “study” that compared search frequency with media hype about a weather event.
It might also be interesting to see who uses “Google” versus other search engines.
Indeed, you can only speculate. However, you could have speculated far differently than you did.
One possibility is that when weather is inconsistent with climate change, climate cultists go online in higher numbers, seeking to assuage their cognitive dissonance by locating the ad hoc “global warming is consistent with everything” or “weather is not climate” rationalizations that are dutifully provided to the MSM by the cult’s High Priests when such events occur.
One possibility is that when weather is inconsistent with climate change, less thoroughly brainwashed climate cultists go online in higher numbers questioning their prior beliefs, and their deprogramming begins.
You did not speculate in those ways. Funny, that.
Kool aid?