The impact of local temperature volatility on attention to climate change: Evidence from Spanish tweets

Variability in local weather patterns has long been suggested as a major barrier impeding laypeople from recognizing long-term climate trends. However, humans are able to detect and interpret rapid signal fluctuations, it seems psychologically plausible assume that they integrate short-term variations of variables into their mental representations change. Using combined analysis social media station data, here we investigated the impact volatility temperature on change-related tweets 2014 2017. We found nonlinear hockey stick relationship between weekly tweets, rise 1 °C corresponds an 82% increase change when is above 3.5 °C. This effect was observed 2016 onwards, suggesting recent people’s study provides empirical evidence illustrating public mind, may not be represented mere any more, but disruption system general.