@article{Sisco:244330,
      recid = {244330},
      author = {Sisco, Matthew R. and Bosetti, Valentina and Weber, Elke  U.},
      title = {Do Extreme Weather Events Generate Attention to Climate  Change?},
      address = {2016-08-30},
      number = {839-2016-55901},
      series = {MITP},
      pages = {25},
      month = {Aug},
      year = {2016},
      abstract = {We analyzed the effects of 10,748 weather events on  attention to climate change between December 2011 and  November 2014 in local areas across the United States.  Attention was gauged by quantifying the relative increase  in Twitter messages about climate change in the local area  around the time of each event. Coastal floods, droughts,  wildfires, strong wind, hail, excessive heat, extreme cold,  and heavy snow events all had detectable effects. Attention  was reliably higher directly after events began, compared  to directly before. This suggests that actual experiences  with extreme weather events are driving the increases in  attention to climate change, beyond the purely descriptive  information provided by the weather forecasts directly  beforehand. Financial damage associated with the weather  events had a positive and significant effect on attention,  although the effect was small. The abnormality of each  weather event’s occurrence compared to local historical  activity was also a significant predictor. In particular  and in line with past research, relative abnormalities in  temperature (“local warming”) generated attention to  climate change. In contrast, wind speed was predictive of  attention to climate change in absolute levels. These  results can be useful to predict short-term attention to  climate change for strategic climate communications, and to  better forecast long-term climate policy support.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/244330},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.244330},
}