Linking climate and extreme weather

Robin Tschötschel

May 29, 2026

The impacts of climate change are becoming more tangible, and extreme weather events are increasingly common. But do people who experience more storms, heatwaves, and flood disasters actually demand more climate action? Our article today shows that everything depends on making the connection between climate change and these weather events.

This post is part of the series “Studies of the month” in cooperation with klimafakten.de. In the series, members of the climate communication lab (PI: Prof. Dr. Michael Brüggemann) share their expertise on noteworthy recent studies.

Which questions do this month’s studies address?

In this edition, we discuss two studies that examine the connection between experiencing extreme weather and supporting climate action.

Viktoria Cologna et al. (2025) approach this question on a global scale. They also investigate whether people support more climate action when they subjectively link extreme weather to climate change.

Nils Christian Hoenow et al. (2025) analyze data from multiple studies in Germany. Among other things, they explore whether the severe storms of 2021 and the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley led to increased support for climate protection measures.

Which methodology was used, and why is it reliable?

Cologna et al. (2025) utilize an exceptionally large international dataset featuring over 70,000 respondents across 68 countries. In addition, they use climate models to estimate the proportion of each country’s population affected by extreme weather events.

This data is then analyzed using a complex statistical multilevel model. This approach allows individual factors—such as personal trust in climate science—to be examined alongside contextual variables, like the degree of climate affectedness of a whole nation, within a single model.

The massive dataset and wide distribution across diverse global regions allow for generalizable conclusions. Furthermore, the work was produced by a large research consortium and was published in one of the most prestigious scientific journals (Nature Climate Change).

Hoenow et al. (2025) use detailed datasets from Germany, broken down to the district level. This allowed them to compare whether people who were directly affected by the 2021 flood events are now more supportive of climate action compared to those living in unaffected districts.

The particular strength of this study lies in its “triangulation.” By combining multiple datasets with different survey periods and variables, the results are far more robust than those of single-source studies.

In additon, the study goes beyond merely measuring support for political policies. As Dr. Mike Farjam (University of Hamburg) notes, “A key strength of Hoenow et al. (2025) lies in directly measuring behavior—specifically through donations that could be made at the end of the questionnaire.”

What are the key findings, and why are they relevant for climate communication?

In short, people who have experienced extreme weather events do not necessarily show greater support for climate protection measures. Approaching the issue from different angles, both studies discussed here arrive at similar results that support this finding.

Cologna et al. (2025) demonstrate that people living in countries more heavily impacted by extreme weather events overall do not show higher levels of support for climate action. While this might appear to be the case at first glance, the correlation completely disappears once other individual-level variables are taken into account.

Similarly, Hoenow et al. (2025) conclude: “Despite our comprehensive research efforts, we found no significant differences [between affected and unaffected regions]” (p. 221).

The 2021 flood disaster caused severe damage and fatalities, particularly in the Ahr Valley and North Rhine-Westphalia. However, the affected districts do not show any higher support for political measures to combat climate change.

Furthermore, data collected before and after the flood events show no difference—neither within the affected regions nor in the rest of Germany. According to the author team, however, this could also be due to the fact that public support was already at a very high level prior to the disaster.

Weather or Climate?

Above all, the work of Cologna et al. (2025) clearly demonstrates: “Those who subjectively perceive extreme weather events as a consequence of climate change show higher support for climate protection measures” (p. 729f).

In other words, individuals who are aware that climate change leads to more frequent and severe extreme weather events—such as floods, heatwaves, severe storms, forest and bushfires, heavy rainfall, and droughts—are more willing to politically support climate action.

There are also positive “interaction effects” for some of the weather phenomena studied: storms, precipitation, and heatwaves. This means that individuals who both subjectively connect these weather extremes to climate change and live in a more heavily impacted country show even stronger support than those who possess the awareness but do not live in a particularly affected country.

What can be derived from the study for practical application?

The takeaway for practical application is clear: it is an essential task of climate communication to convey the connections between climate change and extreme weather events.

However, Hendrik Meyer (doctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg) notes: “It would be particularly important to mobilize communicators who can also reach those groups that are not already convinced that climate change is altering our weather.”

While the consequences of climate change in the form of extreme weather are becoming increasingly obvious, many people are still unaware of this connection. Clear communication—for example, by weather presenters during the news—could potentially have a major impact, and not just on the willingness to support political measures.

As Dr. Anne Reif (University of Hamburg) explains: “The more the media is perceived to report on extremes and link them to climate change, the stronger the trust in climate science becomes.”

In recent years, attribution science has established itself as a robust field of research. While a single heatwave cannot be attributed 100% to global warming, science can now very quickly calculate how much more likely or intense a specific event has become due to global warming. For example, the 2021 flood disaster was made “1.2 to 9 times more likely” by climate change.

Laura Thomas-Walters et al. (2024) investigated this method of communication (the so-called “Climate Shift Index”) in the US and concluded that different ways of conveying this connection—using percentages, historical comparisons, with or without scientific explanation—all yield good results.

Explaining Principles

If no specific attribution study is (yet) available for a current extreme weather event, the guide by worldweatherattribition.org recommends various strategies.

Relying on similar, well-researched events: Since this field of research has existed for around 20 years, studies on historical, similar extreme weather situations already exist for almost every region and can serve as a guide.

Utilizing established physical principles (e.g., from the IPCC report): Certain connections are so solidly researched globally that they can be stated with a high degree of certainty:

With extreme temperatures, the connection is strongest and simplest: Every heatwave in the world today has become more intense and more likely due to climate change. Temperatures that were previously impossible form the new extreme. Furthermore, heatwaves are increasingly occurring simultaneously in different regions (synchronous weather extremes), which has catastrophic consequences for the global food supply.

For extreme precipitation, the evidence in most parts of the world (especially in Europe) is also unambiguous: Heavy rainfall has become more frequent and intense due to human influence. Journalists should explain the Clausius-Clapeyron equation: for every 1° C of warming, the air can hold around 7% more moisture. When it rains, quite simply, more water falls from the sky.