In the study, Egan and Mullin wanted to see how the public’s experience with weather has changed since 1974. They developed a metric they called the “weather preference index” that quantifies Americans’ appetite for warmer winters and temperate summers.
The metric looked at maximum temperatures in January and July, as well as summer humidity and precipitation data. For almost everyone in the U.S., winters have become warmer and summers have remained relatively stable.
According to their metric, the population centers experiencing the most worsening of weather were in the northeast and parts of Southern California and Arizona. However, the most severe worsening occurred in sparsely populated areas of the upper Midwest.
Whereas climate scientists report on average temperatures over time and extreme events related to climate change, Mullin and Egan wanted to look at climate change through the eyes of the general public. Many people’s beliefs and concerns about climate change form partly based on their experience with the daily weather, the study says.
And based on Americans’ experience with climate change so far, "none of this gives the American public reason to demand change and public policies to address this critical problem,” Mullin said.
http://www.latimes.com/science/scie...ange-weather-america-20160420-story.html
