Most Americans link weather to global warming: survey

Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters

4:33 pm, October 9, 2012
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly three-quarters of Americans say global warming influences U.S. weather and made this year's record-hot summer worse, a survey said on Tuesday.

Conducted by Yale and George Mason universities, the survey found 74 percent of Americans believe that global warming is affecting weather, up 5 percentage points since March 2012, the last time the two organizations asked these questions.
Seventy-three percent of Americans said global warming made the record-high temperatures of summer 2012 worse, and 61 percent said weather in the United States has been worsening over the past several years, an increase of 9 percentage points since March
"Extreme weather is clearly having a serious impact on millions of Americans, though the impacts are different in different parts of the country," survey co-investigator Edward Maibach of George Mason University said in a statement.

The survey found most Midwesterners -- 71 percent, up 21 points since March -- said extreme weather caused more harm to crops over the past few decades. Eighty-three percent said they personally experienced an extreme heat wave, while 81 percent said they had experienced drought in the past year. That was an increase of 55 percentage points from March.http://touch.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-72811971/




A smaller majority of Southerners -- 56 percent -- said the weather in their localities has been getting worse over the past few years. Only 40 percent of those in the Northeast said drought has become more common. In the West, 49 percent said extreme weather is causing more forest fires, up seven points since March.