Study looks at connection between extreme weather and climate change

Natural disasters are often just that - natural - and given the tragic twister out of Oklahoma we’ve certainly seen a discussion on whether climate change is to blame . The truth is we don’t know, we just know we can help disaster victims .

With so many folks making that immediate connection, however, it’s important to provide context. Last year, Superstorm Sandy shook people that, hey, climate change is here and it is real. A study by Yale/George Mason research on American climate attitudes was released and it shows an uptick in the number of people who connect extreme weather with climate change.

Some key findings:

-About six in ten Americans (58 percent) say “global warming is affecting weather in the United States.” In the West, 54 percent say this.

-Many Americans believe global warming made recent extreme weather and climatic events “more severe,” specifically: 2012 as the warmest year on record in the United States (50 percent); the ongoing drought in the Midwest and the Great Plains (49 percent); Superstorm Sandy (46 percent); and Superstorm Nemo (42 percent).

-Most Americans (80 percent) have close friends or family members (not living with them) who experienced extreme weather events in the past year, including extreme high winds (47 percent), an extreme heat wave (46 percent), an extreme snowstorm (39 percent), extreme cold temperatures (39 percent), an extreme rainstorm (37 percent), or a drought (35 percent).

From Sightline on the study on the takeaways of note:

Even though our memories appear to be short—the recency of events affects how we answer questions about weather—there’s an upward trend when it comes to associating weird weather of many different types, from many different seasons, with climate change. Increasingly, even if respondents hadn’t experienced harmful weather first hand, somebody close to them did. They are likely to have talked about it with friends and family, and many have thought about how to be prepared for weather disasters in their own local communities.

Read the full report HERE .