Arora Gaurav, Feng Hongli
Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, New Delhi, India.
Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Sci Rep. 2024 Nov 4;14(1):26641. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-76327-8.
Scientific data concerning climate change are critical for designing mitigation and adaptation strategies. Equally important is how stakeholders perceive climate change because perceptions influence decision-making. In this paper, we employ spatially-delineated primary surveys to evaluate weather perception biases among corn and soybean farmers located on western frontier of the U.S. Corn Belt where substantial loss of grassland has been documented. We characterize farmers' perception biases by measuring the gap between survey-based perception reports for three distinct weather indicators (i.e., temperature, precipitation and drought) and corresponding meteorological evidence. About 70% farmers in our sample misperceive past weather changes. Three-fourths of these misperceiving farmers over-estimate local temperatures and drought frequency and 40% of them under-estimate precipitation trends relative to past records. We further find evidence that farmers' weather change perceptions are systematically biased in a manner that would justify past land use decisions. Particularly, higher cropping incidence on previously protected grasslands effected more farmers to under-perceive drier conditions and over-perceive wetter conditions. Our investigation of perception biases across distinct weather indicators with a reference to past economic decisions enriches the understanding of climate change perceptions and related policies.
有关气候变化的科学数据对于制定缓解和适应策略至关重要。利益相关者对气候变化的认知同样重要，因为认知会影响决策。在本文中，我们采用空间划分的初步调查，以评估位于美国玉米带西部边境的玉米和大豆种植农户的天气认知偏差，该地区已记录有大量草地流失情况。我们通过测量基于调查的三种不同天气指标（即温度、降水和干旱）的认知报告与相应气象证据之间的差距，来描述农户的认知偏差。我们样本中约70%的农户误判了过去的天气变化。在这些误判的农户中，四分之三高估了当地温度和干旱频率，40%的农户相对于过去记录低估了降水趋势。我们进一步发现，农户对气候变化的认知存在系统性偏差，这种偏差方式可以为过去的土地利用决策提供合理依据。特别是，以前受保护草地上更高的种植发生率使更多农户低估了干燥状况并高估了湿润状况。我们参考过去的经济决策，对不同天气指标的认知偏差进行调查，丰富了对气候变化认知及相关政策的理解。
