Poll: Public Concern on Warming Gains Intensity

March 26, 2006 — -- The intensity of public concern about global warming has spiked sharply over the last decade, along with a change in personal experience: Half of Americans say weather patterns have grown more unstable and temperatures have risen where they live, and 70 percent think weather patterns globally have become more unsettled in recent years.

A vast majority, 85 percent, believes global warming probably is occurring, up slightly from 80 percent in a 1998 poll. But fewer than four in 10 are very sure of it, a level of uncertainty that reflects broad and continued belief that scientists themselves disagree on whether or not it's happening.