Report · Jul 9, 2026
Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes, Spring 2026
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 (59%) think global warming is affecting weather in the United States, including many who think global warming is affecting U.S. weather either “a lot” (35%) or “some” (18%).
As noted above, about one-third of Americans (35%) think global warming is affecting weather “a lot,” which is about the average percentage over the past four years.
5.2 A majority of Americans are worried about harm from extreme weather events or related impacts in their local area.
More than half of Americans are at least “a little worried” their local area might be harmed by water pollution (79%), diseases carried by mosquitoes and ticks, such as Lyme disease and West Nile Virus (79%), electricity power outages (78%), air pollution (77%), extreme heat (77%), droughts (72%), water shortages (70%), wildfires (63%), and/or flooding (63%). Forty-five percent of Americans are at least “a little worried” that hurricanes will harm their local area.
