Public interest in climate change over the past decade and the effects of the ‘climategate’ media event
Despite overwhelming scientific consensus concerning anthropogenic climate change, many in the non-expert public perceive climate change as debated and contentious. There is concern that two recent high-profile media events—the hacking of the University of East Anglia emails and the Himalayan glacie...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2014-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/5/054005 |
| _version_ | 1797747961043615744 |
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| author | William R L Anderegg Gregory R Goldsmith |
| author_facet | William R L Anderegg Gregory R Goldsmith |
| author_sort | William R L Anderegg |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Despite overwhelming scientific consensus concerning anthropogenic climate change, many in the non-expert public perceive climate change as debated and contentious. There is concern that two recent high-profile media events—the hacking of the University of East Anglia emails and the Himalayan glacier melt rate presented in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—may have altered public opinion of climate change. While survey data is valuable for tracking public perception and opinion over time, including in response to climate-related media events, emerging methods that facilitate rapid assessment of spatial and temporal patterns in public interest and opinion could be exceptionally valuable for understanding and responding to these events’ effects. We use a novel, freely-available dataset of worldwide web search term volumes to assess temporal patterns of interest in climate change over the past ten years, with a particular focus on looking at indicators of climate change skepticism around the high-profile media events. We find that both around the world and in the US, the public searches for the issue as ‘global warming,’ rather than ‘climate change,’ and that search volumes have been declining since a 2007 peak. We observe high, but transient spikes of search terms indicating skepticism around the two media events, but find no evidence of effects lasting more than a few months. Our results indicate that while such media events are visible in the short-term, they have little effect on salience of skeptical climate search terms on longer time-scales. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:58:06Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e3b79b258e86422fa3a9ccecbd4b9d26 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:58:06Z |
| publishDate | 2014-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-e3b79b258e86422fa3a9ccecbd4b9d262023-08-09T14:47:15ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262014-01-019505400510.1088/1748-9326/9/5/054005Public interest in climate change over the past decade and the effects of the ‘climategate’ media eventWilliam R L Anderegg0Gregory R Goldsmith1Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08540, USAEnvironmental Change Institute, University of Oxford , Oxford, UKDespite overwhelming scientific consensus concerning anthropogenic climate change, many in the non-expert public perceive climate change as debated and contentious. There is concern that two recent high-profile media events—the hacking of the University of East Anglia emails and the Himalayan glacier melt rate presented in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—may have altered public opinion of climate change. While survey data is valuable for tracking public perception and opinion over time, including in response to climate-related media events, emerging methods that facilitate rapid assessment of spatial and temporal patterns in public interest and opinion could be exceptionally valuable for understanding and responding to these events’ effects. We use a novel, freely-available dataset of worldwide web search term volumes to assess temporal patterns of interest in climate change over the past ten years, with a particular focus on looking at indicators of climate change skepticism around the high-profile media events. We find that both around the world and in the US, the public searches for the issue as ‘global warming,’ rather than ‘climate change,’ and that search volumes have been declining since a 2007 peak. We observe high, but transient spikes of search terms indicating skepticism around the two media events, but find no evidence of effects lasting more than a few months. Our results indicate that while such media events are visible in the short-term, they have little effect on salience of skeptical climate search terms on longer time-scales.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/5/054005new mediafocusing eventsglobal warmingmedia coveragescience communicationsearch engines |
| spellingShingle | William R L Anderegg Gregory R Goldsmith Public interest in climate change over the past decade and the effects of the ‘climategate’ media event Environmental Research Letters new media focusing events global warming media coverage science communication search engines |
| title | Public interest in climate change over the past decade and the effects of the ‘climategate’ media event |
| title_full | Public interest in climate change over the past decade and the effects of the ‘climategate’ media event |
| title_fullStr | Public interest in climate change over the past decade and the effects of the ‘climategate’ media event |
| title_full_unstemmed | Public interest in climate change over the past decade and the effects of the ‘climategate’ media event |
| title_short | Public interest in climate change over the past decade and the effects of the ‘climategate’ media event |
| title_sort | public interest in climate change over the past decade and the effects of the climategate media event |
| topic | new media focusing events global warming media coverage science communication search engines |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/5/054005 |
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