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Public acceptance of the reality of human-caused climate change has risen gradually in the United States, reflecting cumulative impacts from scientific research and communication, and perhaps also from experienced manifestations such as extreme weather or change to familiar seasons. In the rural North Country of northern New England, a key manifestation of climate change has been warming winters. A 2017 survey asked North Country residents whether they thought that recent winters have been warmer compared with earlier decades. Winter warming, which in this historically snowy region has broad impacts ranging from the economy to everyday life, was recognized by a majority of residents young and old, male and female, with little or much education—but not by the most conservative. Although our winter question does not mention climate change, responses followed patterns similar to a subsequent question about human-caused climate change. Moreover, the partisan gradient in response to both winter and climate questions is steepest among people reporting that most of their friends belong to the same political party. Partisan constraints on perception of a mundane physical reality could limit the scope for weather or climate experiences to alter beliefs among those whose political/social identity favors climate-change rejection.

Wildfires impact upon populations where development has occurred within or adjacent to natural vegetation. Even with extensive management interventions in the landscape, wildfires will continue to impact upon some properties. Residents in wildfire prone areas need to prepare themselves and their properties. Studies have found cost is one of the main reasons there is a generally low level of preparation by residents. In this study, we quantify the cost for residents to prepare themselves and retrofit their property for wildfire in an intermix and interface community. We combine this with semi-structured interviews to identify limitations to preparedness and willingness to contribute to a shared cost scheme with local government. Wide variation in the level of preparedness was found for the five case study homes in the intermix area and the five in the interface area with intermix houses being better prepared than those at the interface. All buildings were found not to comply with any building standards for wildfire resilience, despite most being considered to have the highest level of wildfire exposure. The total up-fronts cost to prepare residents and their homes ranged from approximately $8500 to $47,000 with an average of $24,600. Based on these figures, the financial investment required was significantly higher than residents felt they were able to cover. Ultimately, the choice to live in a wildfire-prone area will always involve the acceptance of some risk, regardless of the construction of the property and preparedness of the household.

This work evaluates two distinct calculations of central tendency for sea-ice thickness and quantifies the impact such calculations have on ice volume for the Southern Ocean. The first calculation, area-weighted average thickness, is computed from polygonal ice features and then upscaled to regions. The second calculation, integrated thickness, is a measure of the central value of thickness categories tracked across different scales and subsequently summed to chosen regions. Both methods yield the same result from one scale to the next, but subsequent scales develop diverging solutions when distributions are strongly non-Gaussian. Data for this evaluation are sea-ice stage-of-development records from US National Ice Center ice charts from 1995 to 1998, as proxy records of ice thickness. Results show regionally integrated thickness exceeds area-weighted average thickness by as much as 60% in summer with as few as five bins in thickness distribution. Year-round, the difference between the two calculations yields volume differences consistently >10%. The largest discrepancies arise due to bimodal distributions which are common in ice charts based on current subjective-analysis protocols. We recommend that integrated distribution be used for regional-scale sea-ice thickness and volume estimates from ice charts and encourage similar testing of other large-scale thickness data archives.

Will Arctic warming affect mid-latitude weather? Many researchers think so, and have addressed this question through scientific articles and news media. Much of the public accepts such a connection as well. Across three New Hampshire surveys with more than 1500 interviews, 60% of respondents say they think future Arctic warming would have major effects on their weather. Arctic/weather responses changed little after Superstorm Sandy brushed the region, but exhibit consistently strong partisan divisions that grow wider with education. Belief in an Arctic/weather connection also varies, in a nonlinear pattern, with the temperature anomaly around day of interview. Interviewed on unseasonably warm or cool days, respondents are more likely to think that Arctic warming would have major effects on their weather. This unscientific response seems to mirror the scientific discussion about extremes.

Wedge-like sedimentary structures at two sites in northern Delaware USA are located at the erosional surface of, and extend into, channel deposits of the fluvial, mid-Pleistocene Columbia Formation. The wedges are 0.25–0.60 m wide at the top, 1.0–1.5 m in vertical extent, contain moderate to poorly sorted, and vertically-stratified sediment, and are overlain unconformably by a layer of wind-blown silt. Several hypotheses for the formation and infill of the wedges were evaluated using detailed physical, stratigraphic, and sedimentological information. The most likely explanation for the features is that they are relict cryogenic structures formed by thermal-contraction cracking in permafrost, and filled with wind-blown sediments derived from the Columbia Formation. The wedges are believed to have formed in the tundra environment that existed in northern Delaware, south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, during the coldest parts of the Wisconsinan glaciation. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A simple question about climate change, with one choice designed to match consensus statements by scientists, was asked on 35 US nationwide, single-state or regional surveys from 2010 to 2015. Analysis of these data (over 28,000 interviews) yields robust and exceptionally well replicated findings on public beliefs about anthropogenic climate change, including regional variations, change over time, demographic bases, and the interacting effects of respondent education and political views. We find that more than half of the US public accepts the scientific consensus that climate change is happening now, caused mainly by human activities. A sizable, politically opposite minority (about 30 to 40%) concede the fact of climate change, but believe it has mainly natural causes. Few (about 10 to 15%) say they believe climate is not changing, or express no opinion. The overall proportions appear relatively stable nationwide, but exhibit place-to-place variations. Detailed analysis of 21 consecutive surveys within one fairly representative state (New Hampshire) finds a mild but statistically significant rise in agreement with the scientific consensus over 2010–2015. Effects from daily temperature are detectable but minor. Hurricane Sandy, which brushed New Hampshire but caused no disaster there, shows no lasting impact on that state’s time series—suggesting that non-immediate weather disasters have limited effects. In all datasets political orientation dominates among individual-level predictors of climate beliefs, moderating the otherwise positive effects from education. Acceptance of anthropogenic climate change rises with education among Democrats and Independents, but not so among Republicans. The continuing series of surveys provides a baseline for tracking how future scientific, political, socioeconomic or climate developments impact public acceptance of the scientific consensus.