Report · Jan 27, 2026
Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes, Fall 2025
By Anthony Leiserowitz, John Kotcher, Seth Rosenthal, Emily Goddard, Jennifer Carman, Marija Verner, Teresa Myers, Joshua Ettinger, Julia Fine, Emily Richards, Matthew Goldberg, Jennifer Marlon and Edward Maibach
Filed under: Beliefs & Attitudes, Behaviors & Actions and Climate Impacts
5. Impacts of Global Warming
5.1 A majority of Americans think global warming is affecting weather in the United States.
A majority of Americans (64%) think global warming is affecting weather in the United States, including many who think global warming is affecting U.S. weather either “a lot” (31%) or “some” (25%).
As noted above, 31% of Americans think global warming is affecting weather “a lot,” which is about the average percentage over the past eight years.
5.2 Most Americans think global warming is affecting extreme weather events or related impacts in the United States.
Most Americans think global warming is affecting many extreme weather events or related impacts in the United States at least “a little.” Seven in ten or more think global warming is affecting extreme heat (74%), wildfires (72%), and droughts (72%). Six in ten or more think global warming is affecting hurricanes (68%), air pollution (68%), flooding (68%), water shortages (66%), water pollution (62%), and electricity power outages (61%), and more than half think it is affecting diseases carried by mosquitoes and ticks, such as Lyme disease and West Nile Virus (58%).
5.3 A majority of Americans are worried about harm from extreme weather events or related impacts in their local area.
As described in Section 5.2, most Americans think global warming already affects extreme weather events or related impacts in the United States. This section details how worried Americans are that each of these events or impacts will harm their local area in the future. Half or more Americans are at least “a little worried” their local area might be harmed by air pollution (80%), water pollution (79%), electricity power outages (79%; eight percentage points higher than when we last asked this question in Spring 2025), diseases carried by mosquitoes and ticks, such as Lyme disease and West Nile Virus (76%), droughts (73%), extreme heat (73%), water shortages (68%), wildfires (65%), and flooding (64%). Forty-eight percent of Americans are at least “a little worried” that hurricanes will harm their local area.
