Brookings has released a new survey that confirms other recent polls: Public understanding of climate science is rebounding, and the recent record-smashing extreme weather events are playing a key role.
As you can see, the biggest jump is from independents, demonstrating once again that global warming has become a major wedge issue. Many other recent polls have made that clear (see "Gallup poll: Public understanding of global warming gains" and "Independents, Other Republicans Split With Tea-Party Extremists on Global Warming"). Now if progressive politicians would only seize on this winning issue.
Perhaps even more remarkable than this rebound in understanding is the record rise in the public's confidence in their accurate understanding of climate science that the National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change [NSAPOCC] found:
Just under two thirds of those who believe global warming is occurring stated that they were very confident of this position. This 63 percent confidence level is 14 percentage points higher than in the fall of 2011 and marks the highest level since the NSAPOCC began in 2008.
Why would confidence be growing, especially when the media and key opinion-makers have all but stoppedtalking about climate change?
Brookings had previously found that Americans' Understanding of Climate Change Is Increasing With More Extreme Weather, Warmer Temperatures. Certainly the American public is seeing for themselves the off-the-chart heat waves and other extreme weather that climate scientists have long said would become more common as we pour more heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (see NOAA Chief: U.S. Record of a Dozen Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters in One Year Is "a Harbinger of Things to Come"). That was especially true in March (see "March Came In Like A Lamb, Went Out Like A Globally Warmed Lion On Steroids Who Smashed 15,000 Heat Records").
The new survey added further evidence that "the growth in the percentage of Americans who see evidence of global warming appears to be related to individual perceptions of weather conditions and events.":
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