(Press-News.org) EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Scientists have presented the most comprehensive evidence to date that climate extremes such as droughts and record temperatures are failing to change people's minds about global warming.
Instead, political orientation is the most influential factor in shaping perceptions about climate change, both in the short-term and long-term, said Sandra Marquart-Pyatt, a Michigan State University sociologist and lead investigator on the study.
"The idea that shifting climate patterns are influencing perceptions in the United States - we didn't find that," said Marquart-Pyatt, associate professor of sociology. "Our results show that politics has the most important effect on perceptions of climate change."
The researchers ran more than 100 computer models integrating just over a decade of Gallup survey responses on climate-change perceptions with 50 years of regional climate data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The 12-page study, which appears in the journal Global Environmental Change, includes a 42-page appendix of data from analyses producing about 800 parameters to support the findings.
Some previous studies suggested temperature patterns do, in fact, influence perceptions about global warming, but none measured climatic conditions as comprehensively as the current investigation. Past research often considers a two-day window or a particular community and a single measure of temperature, not an expansive sweep of multiple climate measures as the authors of this study do.
The study analyzed climatic storm-severity measures used by NOAA - temperature, drought, precipitation and wind velocity - from all 50 states in combination with the 11 years of public opinion data. "This gives us the pulse of the nation," said Marquart-Pyatt.
While advocates of global warming reduction efforts hope that experience with a changing climate will eventually convince the public of the reality and seriousness of the problem, the current findings do not bode well for that scenario.
Given this expansive treatment of the issue, there is "little grounds for optimism," the study says, "that public concern about climate change will be driven by future climatic conditions."
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Marquart-Pyatt's co-authors are Aaron M. McCright and Thomas Dietz of MSU and Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University.
It is said to represent a "cosmic constant" found in the curvature of elephant tusks, the shape of a kudu's horn, the destructive beauty of Hurricane Katrina, and in the astronomical grandeur of how planets, moons, asteroids and rings are distributed in the solar system, to name but a few.
Now, researchers from the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Pretoria are also suggesting that the "Golden Ratio" - designated by the Greek symbol ∅ (letter Phi) with a mathematical value of about 1.618 - also relates to the topology of space-time, and to a biological species ...
Thanks to the more than 11,200 sightings of cetaceans over the course of ten years, Spanish and Portuguese researchers have been able to identify, in detail, the presence of orcas in the Gulf of Cadiz, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Alboran Sea. According to the models that have been generated, the occurrence of these cetaceans is linked to the distribution of their main prey (red tuna) and their presence in Spanish, Portuguese and Moroccan waters is thus more limited than previously thought.
In 2011, the Spanish Ministry of the Environment considered the small population ...
The report was presented in Brussels today at an event held under the auspices of the Italian EU Presidency, gathering over sixty experts in the fields of nuclear physics and medical research.
This document provides an updated overview of how fundamental nuclear physics research has had and will continue to have an impact on developments in medicine.
While most nuclear physics phenomena are far beyond our daily experience there is a great variety of related techniques and applications such as those in medicine which have considerable impact on society. The development ...
The negative impact of contractions during in vitro fertilisation is a well-known fact. What was unknown until now was the effect it had on artificial insemination. A new study has discovered that it is the contrary to that seen in embryo transfer: there is an improved chance of getting pregnant.
Researchers from the Valencian Infertility Institute (IVI) have demonstrated that the number of contractions of the uterus per minute is a parameter associated with success in artificial insemination procedures.
The study, recently published in the journal 'Fertility & Sterility', ...
BERKELEY -- Greater income inequality is linked to more deaths among African Americans, but the effect is reversed among white Americans, who experienced fewer deaths, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.
The study, published in the fall 2014 issue of the International Journal of Health Services, highlights stark racial differences in the effects of the widening gap between the rich and poor. The United States has one of the largest gaps between rich and poor among developed nations. According to a report from the nonpartisan ...
In a new register study in the scientific journal BMJ, researchers at Karolinska Institutet are able to dismiss previous claims that there is a link between the increased use of antibiotics in society and a coinciding rise in childhood asthma. The study includes half a million children and shows that exposure to antibiotics during pregnancy or early in life does not appear to increase the risk of asthma.
Several previous studies have shown that if the mother is given antibiotics during pregnancy or if a small child is given antibiotics in early life, the child has an ...
CHICAGO - Researchers are using computed tomography (CT) and 3-D printing technology to recreate life-size models of patients' heads to assist in face transplantation surgery, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Physicians at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston performed the country's first full-face transplantation in 2011 and have subsequently completed four additional face transplants. The procedure is performed on patients who have lost some or all of their face as a result of injury or ...
CHICAGO - Hybrid imaging with positron emission tomography and computed tomography (PET/CT) in the pituitary region of the brain is a promising tool for differentiating military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from those with mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI), according to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
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MTBI ...
CHICAGO - Changes in brain connections visible on MRI could represent an imaging biomarker of Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia. As many as 5 million Americans are affected, a number expected to grow to 14 million by 2050, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preventive treatments may be most effective before Alzheimer's disease is diagnosed, such as when a person is suffering from mild ...
CHICAGO - Some high school football players exhibit measurable brain changes after a single season of play even in the absence of concussion, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
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