If you were warmer this summer, you might be more likely to believe in climate change

Climate change may be a global phenomenon, but whether or not you believe in it may have more to do with your local weather.

A recently published study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that people’s views on climate change may be tied to the weather they have personally experienced, instead of weather conditions around the world. People who experienced more record heat were more likely to believe in global warming, according to study researchers, and those who had experienced recent colder temperatures were more likely to doubt warming in the long term.

"Who do Americans trust about climate change; scientists or themselves?" lead author and Boston University professor Robert Kaufmann said in a press release. "For many Americans, the answer seems to be themselves."

The study compared local changes in temperature — namely, the daily highs and daily lows — across the United States to the levels of “climate skepticism” in those areas. It found that how likely people are to believe in global warming “depends in part on the degree to which they personally experience a warmer or cooler climate.”

But warming temperatures did not automatically mean higher levels of belief in climate change. Even when local conditions seemed to indicate a recent warming trend, study authors found that rising high temperatures did not markedly reduce existing doubt about climate change. A smaller number of recent record low temperatures, however, bolstered climate skepticism in those areas.

“The public tends to ignore local conditions when they are inconsistent with their beliefs,” they wrote.

"The local weather conditions people experience likely play a role in what they think about the broader climate," study co-author and Utah State University researcher Peter Howe said according to Science Daily. "Climate change is causing record-breaking heat around the world, but the variability of the climate means that some places are still reaching record-breaking cold. If you're living in a place where there's been more record cold weather than record heat lately, you may doubt reports of climate change."

This story was originally published December 20, 2016 at 5:15 AM with the headline "If you were warmer this summer, you might be more likely to believe in climate change."