Why a Hot Summer Might Be Mother Earth’s Best Hope

The election of Barack Obama and the increased push for energy independence have helped Congress make strides toward passing comprehensive climate change legislation — but the most valuable tool to rally public support for a cap-and-trade bill could be a hot summer.

A study from two professors at New York University and Temple University released yesterday shows that people’s opinions on global warming are directly related to deviations from average temperatures. In other words, when it’s unusually hot out, people are more likely to believe that climate change is real.

Take a look at this chart, which shows that for each three degrees of deviation above normal temperatures, Americans are one percent more likely to agree that there is “solid evidence” of global warming:

In fact, the weather is one of the leading indicators of a person’s global warming beliefs, ranking below gender but above race, education and age:

And here’s a full breakdown of the demographics whose global warming views are most and least influenced by changes in temperature:

This winter, a record-high 16 percent of Americans told Gallup that global warming would never occur. But given that we appear to be headed for a hot summer, we might expect to see an upswing in climate change concerns in the coming months.

(H/T The Vine.)