Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698

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Global Environmental Change

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gloenvcha

Using Protection Motivation Theory to examine information-seeking

behaviors on climate change
Jun Li a, Ping Qin a, Yifei Quan b, Jie-Sheng Tan-Soo c, *
a
School of Applied Economics, Renmin University of China, China
b
Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, Tsinghua University, China
c
Lee Kuan Yew Sch of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Many earlier studies concluded that exposure to changes in local weather or extreme weather events prompt
China public interest in climate change, and in turn raise support for mitigation policies. However, these findings do not
Developing countries square with observations of record-breaking temperatures, and decades of failure to reduce greenhouse gas
Climate change
emissions. To address this conundrum, we use Protection Motivation Theory to form hypotheses on the specific
Big data
type of climate change-related information that individuals seek during periods of extreme local weather. Using
daily-level internet search engine data from Chinese cities, we find that residents are purposeful and rational in
seeking information on climate change. Specifically, when faced with high or abnormal temperatures, they are
much more likely to seek information to appraise their susceptibility to climate change threats, and evaluate
coping responses. On the other hand, due to the lack of direct benefits, they do not seek out information on
climate mitigation behaviors. In contrast to earlier studies, our findings suggest that it is unlikely that extreme
weather events will prompt support for climate mitigation actions. Instead, as worldwide weather becomes more
extreme and unpredictable, it is likely that public’s attention will shift in the direction of adaptation measures.

1. Introduction garnering public attention in setting of policy agenda (Birkland, 2017).

Partly due to the slow pace of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
reduction, there are now growing calls in the scientific and policy
community to re-imagine research and policies that can lead to stronger
mitigation efforts (Stern, 2021; Stern and Stiglitz, 2022; Stoddard et al.,
2021). Among the numerous suggestions for advancing climate change
research, there is increasing recognition that the public’s GHG emissions
are overlooked, and individuals’ mitigation efforts can play a larger role
in the climate crisis (Stern, 2021; Stern and Stiglitz, 2022; Stoddard
et al., 2021).
There are at least two reasons why individuals and the public can
play a crucial role in climate change. First, the residential sector is the
world’s third-largest energy consumer, directly accounting for around
17% of global CO2 emissions (Nejat et al., 2015). On top of this, being
the final consumer, the public is also indirectly responsible for emissions
in the transportation and industrial sectors. In this regard, effective
reduction in GHG emissions depends crucially on inducing the public to
reduce their carbon footprint (Scannell and Gifford, 2013).
Second, theories on policy processes recognize the importance of
In the context of climate change, studies have identified the lack of
public awareness and enthusiasm as one of the main reasons for lack­
luster progress in implementing emissions mitigation policies (Drum­
mond et al., 2018; Lorenzoni et al., 2007; Rahimi, 2020).
As such, uncovering the factors driving beliefs and interests in
climate change will aid policymakers in forming policies and engaging
the public on such topics, and even time release of new policies more
appropriately (Birkland, 1997, 2017). Toward this end, an enduring
finding across time, space, and research methodology is that personal
experiences of extreme weather events or large changes to local weather
is a strong predictor of i) public interest and information seeking in
climate change, ii) belief in climate change, and to a lesser extent, iii)
support for climate mitigation policies (e.g., Bergquist et al., 2019;
Brulle et al., 2012; Cavanagh et al., 2014; Choi et al., 2020; Constantino
et al., 2022; Donner and McDaniels, 2013; Hughes et al., 2020; Kirilenko
et al., 2015; Konisky et al., 2016; Lang, 2014b; Li et al., 2011; Osber­
ghaus and Demski, 2019; Pianta and Sisco, 2020; Ray et al., 2017; Sisco
et al., 2017a; Sisco and Weber, 2022; Tan-Soo et al., 2022; Taylor et al.,
2014; Zaval et al., 2014).

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jiesheng.tan@nus.edu.sg (J.-S. Tan-Soo).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102698
Received 12 September 2022; Received in revised form 7 May 2023; Accepted 15 May 2023
Available online 25 May 2023
0959-3780/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Li et al.
However, despite these findings, it remains unclear why changes to
local weather would prompt higher public interest or information
seeking in climate change. Moreover, given that climate change is a
multi-faceted topic, there is scientific and policy relevance in dis­
tinguishing how public interest or information-seeking behaviors are
spread across the different aspects of climate change.
On this note, we build on existing studies to examine and generate
new insights on how changes to local weather will affect public interest
and information seeking across different types of behavioral responses
toward climate change in the world’s largest GHG emitter country –
China.
Our study approach can be briefly described in three steps.
First, we enlist the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to structure
the relationship between local weather and individual behaviors
(Rogers, 1975). In essence, the PMT predicts that when one is faced with
environmental threats, they will seek out information to appraise their
susceptibility to dangers, and explore cost-effectiveness of various
coping responses (Bockarjova and Steg, 2014; Rogers, 1975).
Second, individuals in turn require up-to-date information to
appraise threats and availability of coping responses. Given that internet
search engines are ubiquitous sources of information, we follow an
established strand of literature (e.g., Choi et al., 2020; Lang, 2014b;
Osberghaus and Demski, 2019; Qin and Zhu, 2018) by using internet
search volume on China’s largest search engine (Baidu) to proxy for
information seeking in climate change.
Third, using the PMT, we form a series of hypotheses on the rela­
tionship between local weather and information-seeking in climate
change. To test these hypotheses, we amass a daily-level dataset that
spans across ten years, and covers over 300 Chinese cities, we arrive at
the following main findings.
First, we find that, similar to studies conducted in developed coun­
tries, Chinese citizens mentally associate changes to local weather with
climate change as internet search volume on keywords related to the
latter grows significantly on days with high or abnormal temperatures.
For instance, search volume on climate change increases by 50.4% on a
day with average temperature >30 ◦ C relative to a <5 ◦ C day. Similarly,
both “hotter-than-expected” and “cooler-than-expected” days also elicit
increased searches on climate change.
Second, a key point of departure from existing studies is that we
recognize climate change is a multi-faceted topic. There could be many
different behavioral responses even though individuals mentally asso­
ciate local weather changes with climate change. On this note, the PMT
offers more refined predictions on the types of information needed for
individuals to appraise environmental threats and coping measures. We
find that the earlier results were mostly driven by searches on individual
climate adaptation measures, and to a lesser extent, searches on climate
change knowledge. On the other hand, we detect almost no relationship
between daily temperature and public interest in climate mitigation
topics.
Third, an implicit assumption of the PMT framework is that in­
dividuals are seeking information based on local weather conditions. If
true, this means that we can further narrow down the keyword searches
to match with underlying weather and climatic conditions. In this re­
gard, we find that Chinese residents are indeed strategic in searching for
climate change-related information. There are greater interests on key­
words related to global warming, and heat adaptation on hot days,
relative to other adaptation information also related to climate change.
Similarly, those residing in predominantly hot regions are less likely to
search for climate change information on a warm day, compared to
those from cooler regions.
In all, this study makes three contributions to the broad literature on
the relationship between climate change and individuals’ actions.
First, this study is one of the few to investigate the extent to which
daily temperature changes affects public interest in climate change
topics in China, and in developing countries in general. Even though
developing countries account for approximately 50 % of global CO2
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Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698
emissions (Akram et al., 2020), and are much more vulnerable to climate
change compared to their developed countries counterparts (Barreca
et al., 2016; Guo et al., 2014), the former has so far lagged behind their
developed counterparts in climate mitigation and adaptation policies
(Halsnæs and Verhagen, 2007; Mertz et al., 2009). Similarly, research on
public sentiments of climate change is mostly focused on developed
countries and/or data-rich societies (e.g., Kirilenko et al., 2015; Ray
et al., 2017; Sisco et al., 2017a; Zanocco et al., 2019). Given that climate
change is a globally-caused problem, worldwide cooperation is needed
to collectively reduce emissions. As such, this study brings focus and
much-needed evidence to how the public perceives climate change in a
large emitter, and developing country.
Second, even though existing research in this literature mostly
concluded that variation in local weather is likely to increase public
belief or awareness of climate change, this optimistic outlook fails to
account for the possibility that individuals can respond in varied ways to
the perceived threats of climate change. For instance, it is intuitive that
individuals assessing high probability of continued rising temperature in
the future are far more likely to adopt air-conditioners rather than
electric vehicles since the former will directly help alleviate the adverse
effects of heat. In this regard, we use Protection Motivation Theory
(PMT) as a starting point to systematically form hypotheses on how local
temperature changes would affect information seeking in three main
types of behavioral responses toward climate change – knowledge,
adaptation, and mitigation. As such, this study offers a more complete
picture of the relationship between daily temperature and public in­
terest in climate change.
The third contribution involves dataset. Earlier studies examining
climate change sentiments mostly relied on cross-sectional (e.g., Hughes
et al., 2020) or high frequency but short timespan (e.g., Osberghaus and
Demski, 2019) datasets. The drawback of cross-sectional datasets is that
temperature changes at very high frequency, and there are many un­
observed factors (e.g., ownership of air-conditioner, acclimatization)
that can moderate the effects between temperature and sentiments. In
contrast, while high-frequency longitudinal data can iron out many of
these issues by introducing statistical fixed effects to control for time-
varying and time-invariant factors, they should ideally be com­
plemented by a long timespan. In this regard, our dataset has the
following attributes that allow for statistically rigorous analyses, and yet
yield highly generalizable results: i) daily-level, ii) covers 329 cities in
China (accounting for around 96% of total population), and iii) 10 years
(from 2011 to 2020).
2. Background and literature review
Unlike many environmental problems where the causes and impacts
are largely undisputed (e.g., air and water pollution, deforestation), is­
sues surrounding climate change have always been scientifically and
politically controversial (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004; Corbett and Dur­
fee, 2004). However, despite debates surrounding the causes, it is
objectively clear that global temperature has been increasing rapidly in
the past decades. For instance, the year 2020 was recorded as the second
warmest in human history at 1.2 ◦ C warmer than pre-industrial period
(1850 to 1900) (NOAA, 2021). On a decadal basis, 2011 to 2020 was
also the warmest on record where average temperature is 0.82 ◦ C higher
compared to the 20th century (NOAA, 2021).
Due to the saliency of local weather, and connections between daily
weather and long-term climate trends, researchers have long hypothe­
sized that personal experiences with weather can influence interests and
sentiments on climate change (Whitmarsh, 2008). There are two
possible mechanisms behind this relationship.
First, from a psychological perspective, noticeable weather abnor­
malities may remind individuals of climate change, due to a mental
association between these two concepts (Pianta and Sisco, 2020). There
is evidence that individuals who perceive climate change as a relatively
certain and relatable phenomenon (e.g., affecting people and places
J. Li et al.
Fig. 1. Schematic framework of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) as applied to environmental threats posed by local weather conditions.
close to them) are more motivated to engage in climate action than
people who are more psychologically distant from climate change
(McDonald et al., 2015).
Second, from the viewpoint of environmental economics and
behavioral psychology, when faced with weather anomalies, rational
individuals will seek out defensive and mitigation behaviors related to
climate change (e.g., Bockarjova and Steg, 2014; Champ et al., 2003).
For instance, Auffhammer (2014) and Li et al. (2019) both found that
residents in China purchase or use air-conditioners at a higher frequency
during periods of high temperature. Similarly, Bockarjova and Steg
(2014) found that individuals choosing to reduce their carbon footprint
is another plausible behavioral response when threatened with extreme
weather events (Bockarjova and Steg, 2014).
Due to these mechanisms, it is widely hypothesized that public in­
terest in climate change spikes during periods of high or abnormal
temperature. In turn, researchers have explored this relationship using
various notions of public attention and definitions of local weather.
There is a line of research that assess how direct weather experiences
can affect attitudes toward climate change based on field or in-person
surveys. In one of the earliest studies, Li et al. (2011) used survey data
from the United States and Australia to show that respondents are more
likely to believe in climate change if the interview was conducted on a
hotter-than-expected day. Both Donner and McDaniels (2013) and Zaval
et al. (2014) arrived at similar conclusions where they found that
Americans’ belief in climate change increased with anomalously warm
weather. Other than temperature, researchers also examined if extreme
weather events have similar effects. Konisky et al. (2016) paired a
database of storm events in the United States with public opinion data,
and found positive associations between extreme weather events and
concern for climate change. However, this relationship is most likely
short-lived as the findings are statistically significant only limited to
recent events. Bergquist et al. (2019) focused on one event – Hurricane
Irma – and used a rare longitudinal dataset to assess attitudes toward
climate change before and after the event. They found that respondents’
belief in climate change and willingness-to-pay to mitigate carbon
emissions increased after experiencing the hurricane. Lastly, using non-
weather phenomenon as the trigger, a recent study examined if the
Covid-19 pandemic would erode public’s concern for climate change.
Using a multi-country longitudinal dataset (survey taken before and
after the pandemic), they found no evidence to support the hypothesis
that concern for climate change will be overshadowed by other signifi­
cant public events (Sisco et al., 2023).
Even though survey-based studies mostly concluded that direct
experience of extreme weather results in heightened interest or beliefs in
climate change, such studies are limited as they are dependent on
fortuitous survey timing. Moreover, just as weather, public attitudes and
interest change frequently, it is thus difficult for conventional field
surveys to keep up with and capture the latest sentiments. As such, there
is a growing strand of literature that makes creative usage of non-
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Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698
traditional data sources to assess the relationship between monthly
local weather and public interest in climate change.
An early attempt by Lang (2014b) used search index on one of the
most popular internet search engines in the world – Google – to show that
search volume on “climate change” and “global warming” increases
when local temperature is high across cities in the United States. The
rationale behind this research approach is even though internet searches
do not directly convey support or belief, they signal public interest or
information seeking in a particular topic. The merit of web search data is
that such data are high-frequency hence allowing for more precise sta­
tistical estimations. A further advantage of using internet searches is that
datasets are available for multiple countries. For example, Choi et al.
(2020) applied the same approach to 74 cities around the world and
came to a similar conclusion that abnormally warm months lead to
heightened Google search volume on climate change. Other than using
internet searches, researchers are increasingly using social media posts
to reflect sentiments toward climate change. Sisco et al. (2017a) and
Moore et al. (2019) use geo-coded social media messages from Twitter to
assess if the American public is more likely to post messages on the
weather during weeks of abnormal temperature.
In all, regardless of data sources or research approach, existing
studies are consistent in showing that public interest in climate change is
piqued when there are abnormalities in temperature or occurrences of
extreme weather events. However, despite the relatively broad set of
literature, there are still two important knowledge gaps that this study
attempts to fill.
First, a glaring concern with current research utilizing internet
searches is that they do not distinguish between different topics in
climate change even though theories and frameworks linking environ­
mental threats to human behaviors predict specific forms of behavioral
responses (Liu et al., 2018; Semenza et al., 2008). Most existing studies
use search indices provided by Google Trends (e.g., Choi et al., 2020;
Lang, 2014a), which covers all internet searches related to climate
change. However, as mentioned earlier, individuals and households may
not only be broadly interested in climate change topics. Instead, expe­
riencing extreme weather events may cause them to search for specific
ways to protect themselves from or even prevent future events. There is
a small, but growing strand of literature that pays attention to such re­
lationships. Osberghaus and Demski (2019) found that residents who
experienced moderate (as opposed to severe) floods in Germany are
more likely to search for electricity from renewable sources. Similarly,
Sisco and Weber (2022) showed that Americans are more likely to
search for “renewable energy” on weeks with abnormally high
maximum temperature whereas interests on other climate mitigation
policies (e.g., carbon tax and cap-and-trade) remain unaffected. Con­
stantino et al. (2022) found using survey data that Americans that
experienced extreme weather events are more willing to pay for climate
mitigation policies.
We expand upon this line of work as we use searches on keywords
J. Li et al.
specifically related to three main topics in climate change – knowledge,
mitigation, and adaptation – to better assess how local weather prompt
public interest in different aspects of climate change.
Second, existing literature examining impacts of climate change
mostly define temperature either as continuous variables (e.g., Sisco
et al., 2017b), intervals (e.g., Qin et al., 2022), anomalies (e.g., Marlon
et al., 2021), or extreme events (e.g., Brulle et al., 2012). However, due
to a lack of guidance from theoretical frameworks, it is unclear which
measure of temperature is the most appropriate (Newell et al., 2021). In
this study, we use an array of temperature metrics to uncover the rela­
tionship between different measures of temperature and public interest
in climate change.
3. Method and material
3.1. Conceptual framework
We begin our discussion of how weather changes can prompt
behavioral responses by using the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT).
The PMT was first postulated by Rogers (1975) to explain how fears of
adverse outcomes and efficacy of responses work together to prompt
behavioral adaptations. While PMT was initially used to explain in­
dividuals’ taking actions (or not) to avoid adverse health outcomes (e.g.,
smoking cessation to avoid lung cancer), this framework has been
increasingly applied in the environmental context to explain adoption of
pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., Bockarjova and Steg, 2014; Bradley
et al., 2020; Chen, 2020; Janmaimool, 2017; Nguyen et al., 2020).
In the context of climate change, the PMT begins with the individual
appraising environmental threats, and ways to cope with these threats
(Fig. 1).
First, threats appraisal consists of i) perceived severity of the envi­
ronmental threat, ii) perceived susceptibility or vulnerability to the
environmental threat, and iii) utility gains from the environmental
threat. The intuition behind factors (i) and (ii) is that individuals that
assess higher levels of threats are more likely to take actions to protect or
insulate themselves. On the other hand, factor (iii) refers to the net
utility or ‘happiness’ gains derived from climate change or the envi­
ronmental threat. While climate change is largely considered detri­
mental to human well-being, Rode et al. (2021) showed that there are
some instances where it is welfare-enhancing. For example, those
residing in cold climates are likely to benefit from temperature increases
during winter months.
Second, appraisal of coping responses is a function of i) perceived
effectiveness of response, ii) self-assessed ability to implement response
effectively, and iii) cost of responding. Toward this end, factors (i) and
(iii) are tied to a large degree to the specific weather changes that the
individual is facing. For instance, air-conditioners (a climate adaptation
strategy) are obviously much more effective compared to say electric
vehicles (a predominantly climate mitigation strategy) for individuals
facing heatwaves or abnormally high temperatures. Factor (ii) can be
construed as non-pecuniary “learning costs” that one needs to incur from
adoption of the particular behavior. For example, it has been noticed
that individuals are adopting relatively trivial and ineffective carbon
mitigation behaviors (such as turning off lights) as more impactful be­
haviors are more costly from individuals’ standpoint (Huddart Kennedy
et al., 2015; Stoddard et al., 2021; Thøgersen and Crompton, 2009).
It should also be noted that the PMT states these two appraisals are
executed sequentially, where the individual will only consider coping
responses after a threshold level of threat appraisal is reached (Rogers,
1983). If the evaluations result in high appraisals of both threats and
viability of coping mechanisms to deal with the threat, the individuals
will then channel these assessments into intentions, and subsequently
behaviors (Rogers, 1983).
In this regard, we argue that individuals require specific and up-to-
date information to appraise both environmental threats and coping
responses, and that internet search engines reveal the types of
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Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698
information that individuals are using to inform their consequent be­
haviors. On this note, we can form, using Protective Motivation Theory,
the following hypotheses on how changes to local weather influence the
types of climate change-related information the Chinese public search
for.
Hypothesis 1: Variation in local weather is positively correlated with in­
formation seeking in climate change
The rationale behind this hypothesis is straightforward. Earlier
research mostly concluded that personal experiences of large or extreme
changes to local weather would cause mental associations with climate
change (Choi et al., 2020; Lang, 2014a). In turn, this association will
cause them to want to gather more information on climate change.
Hypothesis 2a: Variation in local weather is positively correlated with
information seeking in climate change knowledge
Hypothesis 2b: Variation in local weather is positively correlated with
information seeking in climate change adaptation
Hypothesis 2c: Variation in local weather has little to no effects on in­
formation seeking in climate change mitigation
Even though Hypothesis 1 has been investigated in great detail by
earlier literature (e.g., Lang, 2014a), we can delve deeper into the spe­
cific climate change-related information for which the public searches.
According to the PMT, individuals will first assess the severity and their
susceptibility to threats posed by climate change.
To do that, they are more likely to require general scientific infor­
mation. Hypothesis 2a relates to general scientific knowledge on climate
change that allows individuals to assess their susceptibility.
Second, individuals will also need information to appraise the cost-
effectiveness of various coping responses toward climate change. In
this regard, we formulate two additional hypotheses to examine this
phenomenon. Hypothesis 2b and 2c respectively relate to climate
adaptation, and climate mitigation measures. However, we deviate in
the expected effects where we hypothesize that local weather will only
trigger information seeking on climate adaptation topics, and not
climate mitigation. The rationale is as follows. Even though mitigation
and adaptation are the two most commonly-used responses toward
climate change (IPCC, 2014), their effects are highly distinct from each
other. There is abundant evidence showing that climate mitigation (e.g.,
adoption of electric vehicles, reduced usage of electricity) delivers
benefits only in the long-term, and even so in highly contingent on
others’ actions. On the other hand, adaptation-type coping responses (e.
g., adoption of air-conditioners) are much more direct and rapid in
alleviating the adverse effects of climate change (Biesbroek et al., 2009;
Landauer et al., 2019; Sharifi, 2020). As such, we predict that Chinese
residents are much more likely to seek information on climate adapta­
tion due to their higher coping appraisal.
Hypothesis 3a: The climate change-related information public seeks out is
strongly related to the types of local weather changes they are facing
An implicit assumption of the PMT is that individuals only need
useful information that helps to appraise both threats and coping re­
sponses (Beck and Feldman, 1983; Rippetoe and Rogers, 1987). For
instance, when faced with local weather changes, it is less relevant for an
individual from China to search for information on “glaciers retreat”
even though this phenomenon is related to global climate change.
Likewise, one would also expect individuals to search for adaptation
responses that are relevant to the local weather changes they are
experiencing. As such, in this hypothesis, we group keywords in each
climate change topic into sub-categories to examine how closely infor­
mation searches are related to the local weather experienced by
individuals.
Hypothesis 3b: The climate change-related information public seeks out is
strongly related to the city’s underlying climatic conditions
Another dimension in which information-seeking behavior is related
to local conditions is via the underlying climatic conditions. Similar to
Hypothesis 3a, residents from locations where say, hot weather is
regularly encountered are less likely to search for information on future
susceptibility and/or coping responses on a warm day relative to
J. Li et al.
residents from a cooler climate. The reasons for such behaviors are
twofold. First, as residents are already accustomed to the underlying
climatic conditions of their locations, it is less likely for those from warm
(cold) places to mentally associate hot(cool) days with climate change.
In turn, they are also less likely to search for information related to
future susceptibility to climate change. Second and similarly, if residents
are conditioned to local climates, there is less need for them to search for
coping responses when faced with weather that they are familiar with
(Paton et al., 2017).
3.2. Empirical approach
We use the following fixed-effects regression model to test the hy­
potheses described in Section 3.1:
ln(SI it ) = β0 + f (temit )β + Wit + λt + δit + εit (1)
The dependent variable in E. (1) is log-transformed SIit which refers
to the Baidu search index in city i on calendar date t for keywords related
to climate change. Similar to earlier studies that use the same approach
(e.g., Choi et al., 2020; Lang, 2014b; Osberghaus and Demski, 2019; Qin
and Zhu, 2018), we are assuming that internet searches are indicative of
public interest or information seeking in the corresponding topic or
behaviors.
The main explanatory variable is f(temit ), which we construct in four
different ways to represent ambient temperature.
First, we include daily average temperature up until quadratic form.
This expression allows temperature to have a non-linear relationship
with search volumes and has been utilized in many studies empirically
examining the impact of climate change on human outcomes (e.g.,
Dasgupta et al., 2021).
Second, we categorize daily ambient temperature into one of seven
mutually exclusive temperature intervals. These intervals are in steps of
5 ◦ C and range from below 5 ◦ C to above 30 ◦ C. If city i on calendar date t
has a daily average temperature of 28 ◦ C, the interval of 25 ◦ C to 30 ◦ C
will record a value of one, while the other temperature intervals will
take value of zero.1 This setup allows us to flexibly estimate a non-
parametric relationship between daily temperature and public’s inter­
est in climate change.
A third way to define daily ambient temperature is by using tem­
perature anomalies (e.g., Moore et al., 2019; Obradovich et al., 2017;
Wang et al., 2020). There is abundant evidence showing that humans
can adapt to the underlying climatic conditions at their location (Howe
et al., 2013; Lam et al., 2019). As such, it is plausible that daily tem­
perature will only cause increased public attention if it deviates from the
historical norm. In this regard, we define temperature anomalies as
Tanomaliesit = Tit − Tit(1981− (2)
2010)
where Tit is the daily average temperature for city i on date t, and
Tit(1981− 2010) is the mean value of daily average temperature for dates t
from 1981 to 2010 in city i (in comparison, the time period of the search
index is from 2011 to 2020). The reason behind this construction is that
residents of city i use historical averages to form expectations about
temperature. As such, positive anomalies are “hotter-than-expected”
days, and negative anomalies are “cooler-than-expected” days. The main
difference between using temperature anomalies and temperature levels
as explanatory variables is that the latter do not presume information
seeking or public interest in climate change are elevated only at certain
temperature levels (e.g., above 30 ◦ C). Similar to temperature intervals,
we also define temperature anomalies as binary bins ranging from below
1
As each day in any city is certain to fall into one of the seven temperature
intervals, we need to exclude an interval for statistical identification. Toward
this end, we exclude the range of below 5 ◦ C, and all temperature coefficients
are interpreted with respect to this category.
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Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698
− 8◦ C to above 8 ◦ C, in steps of 2 ◦ C.2
Fourth, heatwaves and cold-spells are examples of extreme events
caused by prolonged abnormal temperatures, and they may cause cu­
mulative interest in climate change. As such, we define a heatwave event
as at least three consecutive days where average daily temperature ex­
ceeds the 90th percentile value of average temperature in the same city
and date for the reference period of 1981–2010. Under this construction,
the first day of a heatwave event will take a value of one, the second day
will take a value of two, and as follows. Similarly, a cold-spell is defined
as at least three consecutive days where average temperature is below
the 10th percentile value of the average level in the reference period.
Days without heatwave or cold-wave are assigned a value of zero.
Other than temperature, we also include a host of covariates to
control for other factors that may affect internet search volume or public
interest in climate change. First, Wit is a vector of daily weather controls
which are included up to quadratic terms. They are total precipitation,
relative humidity, windspeed, hours of sunlight, and atmospheric pres­
sure. Moreover, we include a highly flexible series of calendar-date fixed
effects, λt , where 1st January 2011 is a different fixed effect from 1st
January 2012. These highly granular fixed-effects encompass all time-
related factors including year, month, day-of-week, and public holi­
days, which serve to control for any national-level temporal confound­
ing factors, e.g., public search behavior may vary on weekends, summer
holidays, or festivals. Additionally, we also include city-by-year-month
fixed effects denoted by δit . These fixed effects serve two purposes.
First, they control for any factors fixed at the city level, e.g., size, loca­
tion, and climatic zones. Second, as we interact city with year, they also
control for any city factors that statistically vary at an annual level, e.g.,
regional GDP, population, and the proportion of internet users. In this
regard, city-level time-varying fixed effects allow us to flexibly control
for any city-specific trends.
3.3. Dataset
The dataset used in this analysis is assembled from two sources.
First, to gauge public interest in various climate change topics and
behaviors, we use daily search volume from the most popular internet
search engine in China – Baidu. Throughout the timespan of our dataset
from 2011 to 2020, Baidu is the most-used search engine in China with a
market share ranging from around 60% in the earlier part of the decade
to its current 80%.3 Similarly, due to the widespread usage of Baidu, our
dataset covers 329 cities accounting for around 96% of the country’s
population.
Specifically, we use Baidu Index – the equivalent of its international
counterpart of Google Trends – to measure the daily total search volume
for a city. Just as Google Trends where its exact computation is pro­
prietary information, Baidu has not released how its indices are
computed. However, it is public knowledge that the search indices are
representative of daily search volume in a city, and are comparable over
time and location.4 Currently, Baidu Index has been used in numerous
research studies across different disciplines to proxy for Chinese public
interest and attention toward specific topics, such as public health (He
et al., 2018; Zhong et al., 2019), and tourism (Huang et al., 2017; Yang
et al., 2015). In addition, on environmental topics, many studies used
Baidu Index to assess how Chinese residents protect themselves against
2
As each day in any city is certain to fall into one of the seven temperature
anomalies intervals, we need to exclude an interval for statistical identification.
Toward this end, we exclude the range of − 2 ◦ C to 0 ◦ C, and all temperature
anomalies coefficients are interpreted with respect to this category.
3
“Search Engine Market Share in China” https://gs.statcounter.com/search
-engine-market-share/all/china/. Last accessed: Aug 24, 2022.
4
According to Qin and Zhu (2018), the correlation between Baidu Index and
actual search volume is most likely linear. We have also corresponded with
Baidu to confirm this assertion (correspondence available upon request).
J. Li et al. Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698

Table 1 Table 2
Climate change topics keywords. Summary statistics.
Climate Keywords Sub-topics Variable Mean SD Min Max
change topics
Climate knowledge search index 99.16 180.30 0 3,000
Knowledge Global warming, Greenhouse effect, Direct causes of climate Climate adaptation daily search index 143.01 208.08 0 6,138
Global climate warming, Climate change, and temperature- Climate mitigation daily search index 154.70 302.30 0 63,075
change, Greenhouse gases. related impacts Daily average temperature (◦ C) 14.22 11.20 − 38.58 35.85
El Nino, Glacier melting, Sea level Secondary impacts of
rise climate change
Binary temperature <5 ◦ C 0.21 0.41 0 1
Acid rain, Ozone hole Other atmospheric
intervals 5 ◦ C to 0.12 0.32 0 1
pollution
10 ◦ C
10 ◦ C 0.14 0.34 0 1
Adaptation Air-conditioners, Electric fan, Direct heat-related to15 ◦ C
Heatstroke prevention, Heat- adaptation 15 ◦ C to 0.16 0.37 0 1
avoidance travels 20 ◦ C
Dehumidifier, Clothing index, More general adaptation 20 ◦ C to 0.19 0.40 0 1
Weather warning, Real-time 25 ◦ C
weather 25 ◦ C to 0.15 0.36 0 1
Weather insurance, Emergency Extreme events adaptation 30 ◦ C
bags, Emergency supplies >30 ◦ C 0.02 0.15 0 1

Mitigation Emissions reduction through N.A. Binary temperature <− 8 ◦ C 0.01 0.08 0 1
energy savings, Reduced anomalies intervals − 6 ◦ C to 0.02 0.13 0 1
consumption through energy − 8 ◦C
savings, Energy conservation, − 4 ◦ C to 0.05 0.22 0 1
Green transportation, Low- − 6 ◦C
emissions vehicles, Low-carbon − 2 ◦ C to 0.12 0.33 0 1
lifestyle, Recycling, Vegetarian − 4 ◦C
diet, Water conservation, Waste − 2 ◦ C to 0.24 0.42 0 1
sorting 0 ◦C
0 ◦ C to 2 0.28 0.45 0 1
Notes: The keywords are the top-10 most commonly searched terms for each ◦
C
climate change topic in Baidu. 2 ◦ C to 4 0.18 0.38 0 1
◦
C
4 ◦ C to 6 0.07 0.26 0 1
air pollution. For example, Qin and Zhu (2018) found that searches on ◦
C
“emigration” increase on days with poor air quality. Similarly, Dong 6 ◦ C to 8 0.02 0.15 0 1
et al. (2019) and Li et al. (2021) found that searches on “air quality” ◦
C
increase on days when air quality index rose. >8 ◦ C 0.01 0.10 0 1
As a key departure of this study from earlier efforts is that instead of
treating “climate change” as a singular topic, we define and measure Heatwaves (days) 1.62 3.98 0 41
search volumes for different aspects of climate change. To do so, we first Cold-spells (days) 1.16 5.61 0 201
determine to focus on the knowledge (K), mitigation (M), and adapta­ Relative humidity (%) 67.99 18.03 4.22 100
Daily precipitation (mm) 47.96 1,624.83 0 90,699
tion (A) aspects of climate change. The reason is that each of these Daily hours of sunlight 5.57 4 0 15.48
climate change topics is distinct from the others, and they correspond to Sea pressure (kpa) 95 8.65 57.45 104.34
the various types of information needed to assess threats and coping Wind speed (m/second) 2.11 1.04 0 18.99
responses as theorized in the PMT framework. Second, as there are Notes: Number of obs. = 1,155,870. Search index data obtained from Baidu
multiple phrases and expressions to represent the same concept, it is Index. Daily weather data obtained from China Meteorological Data Service
conceivable that different users may use different search terms even if Center. Temperature anomalies is defined as the difference between current
they are looking for the same set of information. In this regard, we utilize temperature on date t and the average temperature for date t across the past 30
a feature from Baidu Index that yields the 10 most closely related key­ years for each city. Heatwave is included as number of days, and is defined as at
words to a search phrase to help select and narrow down to a feasible set least three consecutive days where daily temperature is above 90th percentile of
of keywords. For instance, to construct the set of keywords for K, we historical temperatures. Cold-spell is included as number of days, and is defined
begin with the phrase “climate change”, obtain the 10 most relevant as at least three consecutive days where daily temperature is below 10th
percentile of historical temperatures.
phrases, and repeat this process ten times. In all, we generated a list of
110 keywords, from which we selected the 10 most frequently repeated
search phrases. The specific keywords used to represent each of the three volume as the coefficient of variation (i.e., ratio of standard deviation to
topics are shown in Table 1, and their corresponding topical Baidu Index mean) is between 1.5 and 2.
is the average search volume for their associated keywords. In view of the wide dispersion in search volume, it is thus useful to
The second source of data is daily weather information obtained gain an overall view of how searches on each of these topics have
from 337 ground weather stations managed by China Meteorological changed over time. To do so, we obtain the de-meaned time trend
Data Service Center. Consistent with previous studies, we use inverse through regression analyses. From the search volume time trends plotted
distance weighting to attribute weather for each city in the dataset in Fig. 2, we see that search volume on each of the three topics started off
(Currie and Neidell, 2005; Deschenes and Greenstone, 2007; Schlenker all around the same level in 2011 but experienced diverse trends after­
and Walker, 2015). ward. Public interest in climate knowledge and mitigation steadily
The summary statistics are presented in Table 2. On average, the decline up until around 2015 when it resumes an upward trend. In
daily Baidu Index for knowledge, adaptation, and mitigation are 99.2, contrast, information seeking in climate adaptation topics started on an
142.6, and 154.3 respectively. This means that on any average day, upward trend around early 2013. However, the interest peaked around
there are more searches for climate mitigation than for climate knowl­ 2017 and remains on a downward trend since then.
edge or adaptation. We also observe wide dispersion in daily search In all, this simple graphical depiction shows that public interest in
different types of climate change topics does not share similar trends or

6
J. Li et al. Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698

Fig. 2. Search volume of different climate change topics over time. Notes: This graph shows the de-meaned daily search volume for each topic. The faint dots
represent observations for each day and topic, and the trend lines are fitted for each topic.

Table 3
Climate change information seeking.
Dep. var. log-transformed climate change search index

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Main explanatory var. Avg temperature Temperature intervals Temperature anomalies Heatwaves & cold-spells

Average temperature 0.001

Temperature-square 0.001***

Binary temperature intervals 5 ◦ C to 10 ◦ C − 0.054***

10 ◦ C to15◦ C − 0.096***
15 ◦ C to 20 ◦ C − 0.101***
20 ◦ C to 25 ◦ C − 0.020
25 ◦ C to 30 ◦ C 0.168***
>30 ◦ C 0.408***

Binary temperature anomalies intervals ≤-8◦ C 0.105***

− 6◦ C to − 8◦ C 0.062***
− 4◦ C to − 6◦ C 0.023***
− 2◦ C to − 4◦ C − 0.008*
0 ◦ C to 2 ◦ C 0.023***
2 ◦ C to 4 ◦ C 0.073***
4 ◦ C to 6 ◦ C 0.111***
6 ◦ C to 8 ◦ C 0.146***
>8◦ C 0.192***

Heatwave 0.029***
Cold-spell 0.0003**
Constant 5.971** 9.096*** 3.015 6.173***
Adj. R-squared 0.751 0.751 0.751 0.751

Notes: Number of obs. = 1,155,870. All regressions are estimated with calendar date fixed effects, city-year-month fixed effects, and weather controls (precipitation,
sea level pressure, relative humidity, wind speed, hours of sunlight, and all of their quadratics). All coefficients in Column (2) should be interpreted with respect to the
excluded temperature interval of below 5 ◦ C. Temperature anomalies is defined as the difference between current temperature on date t and the average temperature
for date t across the past 30 years for each city. All coefficients in Column (3) should be interpreted with respect to the excluded temperature anomalies interval of 0 ◦ C
to − 2◦ C. Heatwave is included as number of days, and is defined as at least three consecutive days where daily temperature is above 90th percentile of historical
temperatures. Cold-spell is included as number of days, and is defined as at least three consecutive days where daily temperature is below 10th percentile of historical
temperatures. Standard errors (not shown in table due to space constraints) are clustered at city-level. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1.

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J. Li et al. Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698

Table 4
Climate change information seeking by topics.
Dep. var. Climate Climate Climate Climate Climate Climate mitigation
knowledge adaptation mitigation knowledge adaptation
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Main explanatory var. Avg temperature Temperature intervals

Average temperature − 0.001 − 0.002 0.003**

(0.001) (0.002) (0.001)
Temperature-square 0.001*** 0.001*** − 0.000**
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Binary temperature 5 ◦ C to 10 ◦ C − 0.039*** − 0.093*** 0.009

intervals (0.010) (0.010) (0.010)
10 ◦ C to 15 ◦ C − 0.055*** − 0.173*** 0.011
(0.013) (0.014) (0.013)
15 ◦ C to 20 ◦ C − 0.062*** − 0.172*** 0.007
(0.016) (0.017) (0.016)
20 ◦ C to 25 ◦ C − 0.052*** 0.036* 0.002
(0.019) (0.021) (0.018)
25 ◦ C to 30 ◦ C − 0.001 0.404*** − 0.005
(0.022) (0.027) (0.020)
>30 ◦ C 0.250*** 0.739*** 0.038
(0.029) (0.034) (0.024)

Constant 4.497 4.854 8.154*** 5.970** 8.321* 9.207***

(2.752) (4.602) (2.459) (2.727) (4.326) (2.411)

Observations 1,155,870 1,159,156 1,159,156 1,155,870 1,159,156 1,159,156

Adj. R-squared 0.593 0.674 0.636 0.593 0.674 0.636

Notes: All regressions are estimated with calendar date fixed effects, city-year-month fixed effects, and weather controls (precipitation, sea level pressure, relative
humidity, wind speed, hours of sunlight, and all of their quadratics). All coefficients in Columns (4) to (6) should be interpreted with respect to the excluded tem­
perature interval of below 5 ◦ C. Standard errors in parentheses, and are clustered at city-level. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1.

paths, in turn, this also means that it is likely that local weather changes
will induce public interest in different types of climate change topics.
The average daily temperature is around 14.2 ◦ C, reflecting China’s
mostly temperate climatic conditions. However, similar to search vol­
ume, there is large variation in daily temperature as they range from
− 39 ◦ C to 36 ◦ C. Not surprisingly, distribution of temperature anomalies
is U-shaped as more than 50% of days fall between − 2 ◦ C below ex­
pected to 2 ◦ C above expected. However, we detect signs of global
warming as more days fall on the right-side of the temperature anom­
alies distribution (i.e., hotter-than-expected) compared to the left-side
(i.e., colder-than-expected).
4. Results
4.1. Overall searches
We test Hypothesis 1 by examining the relationship between daily
ambient temperature and public interest in the average search volume
across all climate change-related topics.
First, we include temperature as a continuous variable up until its
quadratic form. The results in Column (1) of Table 3 show that search
volume for climate change increases at an increasing rate with tem­
perature. For instance, a 1 ◦ C increase in China’s annual mean temper­
ature of 14 ◦ C is associated with a 2% increase in search volume whereas
a 1 ◦ C increase at a temperature of 30 ◦ C is associated with a 4.3% in­
crease in search volume.
Second, to allow for a more flexible relationship between tempera­
ture and search activities, we include temperature as intervals (Table 3,
Column (2)). Compared to the excluded interval of under 5 ◦ C, search
volume on climate change decreases on days where average temperature
is between 5 ◦ C and 25 ◦ C. However, China’s public interest in climate
change surges exponentially on days with average temperature beyond
25 ◦ C. Specifically, there are large increases of 18.3% in searches for
climate change on days between 25 and 30 ◦ C, and 50.4% on days above
30 ◦ C.
Third, the results presented until now consistently show that public
interest in climate change topics is generally positively associated with
temperature. However, China is a large country with highly varied cli­
matic zones (Lam et al., 2005). As such, it is unlikely that the entire
country shares a similar temperature-outcome profile. For instance,
daily averages of 30 ◦ C are commonplace in the subtropical Southern
parts of China whereas it is considered an unusually warm day in the
Northern parts of the country. To account for regional heterogeneity in
baseline climates, we now express daily temperature as temperature
anomalies (i.e., deviation from historical average temperature). The
results in Column (3) of Table 3 show a U-shaped outcome where search
volume on climate change is highest on extreme ends of temperature
anomalies. However, the effects of unexpected cold and hot tempera­
tures are uneven, with the latter generating much more information
seeking. Specifically, relative to a day of no temperature anomalies, a
highly anomalous cold day (>8 ◦ C colder than expected) will elicit
additional 11% searches on climate change. On the other end of the
spectrum, a highly anomalous warm day (>8 ◦ C hotter than expected)
also causes more interest in climate change at around 21% more
searches.
Fourth, it is possible that extended periods of extreme or anomalous
temperatures have accumulative impacts on public interest in climate
change. To test this assertion, we define periods of heatwaves and cold-
spells as at least three continuous days where the average temperature is
respectively above the 90th percentile and below the 10th percentile.
Toward this end, we find that heatwaves not only increase search vol­
ume on climate change, but the effect is amplified as the event prolongs
(Table 3, Column (4)). Specifically, searches increase by 2.9% on the
first day of a heatwave, followed by 5.8% on the second, and so on.
While we also recover statistically significant results for cold-spells, the
effects are much smaller. Searches on climate change increase by 0.03%
on the first day of a cold-spell, followed by 0.06% on the second day, and
so on.

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J. Li et al. Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698

Table 5
Climate change information seeking by topics.
Dep. var. Climate Climate Climate Climate Climate Climate
knowledge adaptation mitigation knowledge adaptation mitigation
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Main explanatory var. Temperature anomalies intervals Heatwaves and cold-spells

Binary temperature anomalies <− 8 ◦ C 0.170*** 0.168*** − 0.017

intervals (0.024) (0.025) (0.023)
− 6 ◦ C to − 8 0.137*** 0.075*** − 0.015
◦
C
(0.016) (0.015) (0.014)
− 4 ◦ C to − 6 0.072*** 0.030*** − 0.011
◦
C
(0.009) (0.009) (0.008)
− 2 ◦ C to − 4 0.023*** − 0.014** − 0.012**
◦
C
(0.006) (0.005) (0.005)
0 ◦ C to 2 ◦ C 0.001 0.050*** − 0.002
(0.004) (0.005) (0.004)
2 ◦ C to 4 ◦ C 0.033*** 0.136*** 0.000
(0.006) (0.007) (0.006)
4 ◦ C to 6 ◦ C 0.091*** 0.201*** − 0.003
(0.009) (0.009) (0.008)
6 ◦ C to 8 ◦ C 0.152*** 0.267*** − 0.006
(0.014) (0.013) (0.012)
>8 ◦ C 0.219*** 0.314*** 0.006
(0.022) (0.021) (0.019)
Heatwave 0.035*** 0.036*** 0.006***
(0.004) (0.004) (0.002)
Cold-spell 0.001*** 0.000 0.000
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Constant 3.884 -2.554 8.836*** 4.410 3.339 9.194***
(2.717) (4.376) (2.425) (2.710) (4.436) (2.408)
Observations 1,155,870 1,159,156 1,159,156 1,155,870 1,159,156 1,159,156
Adj. R-squared 0.593 0.673 0.636 0.593 0.672 0.636

Notes: All regressions are estimated with calendar date fixed effects, city-year-month fixed effects, and weather controls (precipitation, sea level pressure, relative
humidity, wind speed, hours of sunlight, and all of their quadratics). Temperature anomalies is defined as the difference between current temperature on date t and the
average temperature for date t across the past 30 years for each city. All coefficients in Columns (1) to (3) should be interpreted with respect to the excluded tem­
perature anomalies interval of 0 ◦ C to − 2◦ C. Heatwave is included as number of days, and is defined as at least three consecutive days where daily temperature is above
90th percentile of historical temperatures. Cold-spell is included as number of days, and is defined as at least three consecutive days where daily temperature is below
10th percentile of historical temperatures. Standard errors in parentheses, and are clustered at city-level. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1.

Our findings so far are largely consistent with existing literature.
That is, we affirm Hypothesis 1 as Chinese residents’ interests in climate
change-related information are positively correlated with variation in
local daily temperature. While these effects are observed for both hot
and cold days, the results are especially strong for the former.
4.2. Results by topics
Even though climate change is a highly diverse and multi-faceted
topic, earlier studies in this literature mostly did not distinguish be­
tween different topics in climate change. More importantly, as seen
earlier, information seeking in the three related but distinct climate
topics of i) knowledge (K), ii) adaptation (A), and iii) mitigation (M), are
not correlated over time.
In this sub-section, we now test the set of Hypothesis 2 by repeating
the earlier empirical analyses on each of the three climate change topics.
First, when temperature is included as quadratic terms, we see that
search volume for A and K both increase at an increasing rate with
respect to daily temperature (Table 4, Columns (1) to (3)). For instance,
the marginal impact of temperature on A’s search volume is 4.36% at 14
◦
C. However, this impact increases to 9.4% at 30 ◦ C. While searches on K
also grow at an increasing rate with temperature, the rate of increase is
much slower. In contrast, search volume on M has an entirely different
relationship as marginal impact decreases as temperature increases.
Second, we include temperature as intervals. For brevity sake, we
will only discuss the impact on days where average temperature is above
30 ◦ C (Table 4, Columns (4) to (6)). Relative to a temperature-below-5
◦
C day, search volumes for K and A on a temperature-above-30 ◦ C day
both increase by large amounts – 28.4% and 109.3% respectively. In
contrast, searches for M increase by only 3.9% and are not statistically
significant even at the 10% level.
Third, we now express daily temperature in terms of anomalies in­
tervals (Table 5, Columns (1) to (3)). We find that search volume for A
increases by 18% on a day that is more than 8 ◦ C below expected tem­
perature. A hotter-than-expected day of more than 8 ◦ C above expected
temperature elicits much more searches at around 37% increase. In­
formation seeking for K is also positively associated with temperature
anomalies at around 19% for an anomalously cold day of more than 8 ◦ C
below the expected temperature. However, an interesting dichotomy
from earlier results is that search volume for K increases by a similar
magnitude of 24% for anomalously hot days of more than 8 ◦ C above
expected temperature. Consistent with Hypothesis 2 and earlier results,
we find that information seeking in M is not triggered by temperature
anomalies.
Fourth, we examine how searches in each of these three topics are
affected by heatwaves and cold-spells. We first focus on heatwaves.
Public interest in A and K are most sensitive toward heatwaves as the
first day of a heatwave increase search volume by around 3.5%. In
comparison, the effects on M are modest at around 0.6%. On the other
hand, cold-spells either do not have a sizable or statistically significant
impact on searches (Table 5, Columns (4) to (6)).
Lastly, one plausible explanation for the relative lack of public in­
terest on M could be due to short attention span on climate-related topics
(Sisco et al., 2017a). We test this possibility by constructing three-day

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J. Li et al. Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698

Fig. 3. Temperature coefficients for sub-

categories of climate knowledge and
climate adaptation keywords. Notes: All co­
efficients in Panel (A) should be interpreted
with respect to the excluded temperature
interval of below 5 ◦ C. Temperature anoma­
lies is defined as the difference between
current temperature on date t and the
average temperature for date t across the
past 30 years for each city. All coefficients in
Panel (B) should be interpreted with respect
to the excluded temperature anomalies in­
terval of 0 ◦ C to − 2◦ C. The vertical lines
indicate 95% confidence intervals.

Fig. 4. Climate classification zones across China. Notes: The blank areas in this figure are cities not represented in our dataset. These are mostly remote areas with
sparse population. The cities in our dataset account for around 96% of the China’s population.

10
J. Li et al. Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698

Fig. 5. Temperature coefficients for each climate topic across different climatic zones. Notes: All coefficients in Panel (A) should be interpreted with respect to the
excluded temperature interval of below 5 ◦ C. Temperature anomalies is defined as the difference between current temperature on date t and the average temperature
for date t across the past 30 years for each city. All coefficients in Panel (B) should be interpreted with respect to the excluded temperature anomalies interval of 0 ◦ C
to − 2◦ C. The vertical lines indicate 95% confidence intervals.

Fig. A1. Temperature coefficients for each climate topic across different time frequencies. Notes: All coefficients should be interpreted with respect to the excluded
temperature interval of below 5 ◦ C. The vertical lines indicate 95% confidence intervals.

11
J. Li et al. Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698

Table A1
Climate change information seeking by sub-topics.
Dep. var. Knowledge: Global Knowledge: Other climate Knowledge: Other Adaptation: Adaptation: Adaptation: Extreme
warming impacts pollution Heat General events

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Average 0.002*** − 0.003*** − 0.000 − 0.002 0.001 − 0.000
temperature
(0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.002) (0.001) (0.000)
Temperature- 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000 0.001*** 0.000*** 0.000
square
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Constant 3.117** 2.735 2.531 4.505 − 10.795*** 0.153
(1.338) (1.688) (1.549) (3.041) (1.796) (0.659)
Observations 1,155,870 1,155,870 1,155,870 1,159,156 1,159,156 1,159,156
Adj. R-squared 0.600 0.572 0.491 0.683 0.608 0.258

Notes: All regressions are estimated with calendar date fixed effects, city-year-month fixed effects, and weather controls (precipitation, sea level pressure, relative
humidity, wind speed, hours of sunlight, and all of their quadratics). Standard errors in parentheses, and are clustered at city-level. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1.

Table A2
Climate change information seeking by sub-topics.
Dep. var. Knowledge: Global Knowledge: Other climate Knowledge: Other Adaptation: Adaptation: Adaptation: Extreme
warming impacts pollution Heat General events

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Heatwave 0.028*** 0.019*** 0.000 0.035*** 0.005*** − 0.000
(0.003) (0.002) (0.002) (0.003) (0.002) (0.001)
Cold-spell 0.000 0.000*** − 0.000 0.000** − 0.000** − 0.000
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Constant 4.011*** 1.626 2.361 3.004 − 10.751*** 0.060
(1.310) (1.649) (1.529) (2.843) (1.764) (0.645)
Observations 1,155,870 1,155,870 1,155,870 1,159,156 1,159,156 1,159,156
Adj. R- 0.600 0.572 0.491 0.681 0.608 0.258
squared

Notes: All regressions are estimated with calendar date fixed effects, city-year-month fixed effects, and weather controls (precipitation, sea level pressure, relative
humidity, wind speed, hours of sunlight, and all of their quadratics). Heatwave is included as number of days, and is defined as at least three consecutive days where
daily temperature is above 90th percentile of historical temperatures. Cold-spell is included as number of days, and is defined as at least three consecutive days where
daily temperature is below 10th percentile of historical temperatures. Standard errors in parentheses, and are clustered at city-level. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1.

and five-day moving averages of search volume for each topic.5 In this
regard, by comparing the coefficients for temperature bins across
different time frequencies, we can discern how attention-span changes.
The results in Fig. A1 show that attention-span weakens (decrease in
coefficients’ magnitude) as we move from daily (or one-day moving
average) to three- and five-day moving averages. The decrease in
magnitude is especially obvious at high temperature intervals. When
compared across topics, we find that attention-span erodes at the fastest
rate for M (at the hottest temperature interval), followed by K, and A.
These results tentatively supports Sisco et al. (2017a) as we may indeed
observe extreme temperature having statistically significant and posi­
tive impacts on M if higher-frequency data is available (e.g., hourly).
However, the clear disparity in coefficients’ size indicates that even at
more granular time periods, the impact of temperature on search volume
will still be largest for A, followed by K and M topics.
To summarize, this set of results confirms Hypothesis 2. Due to dif­
ferences in their coping effectiveness, we see that public interest is not
evenly distributed across the three climate change topics. Specifically,
we consistently find that local weather changes have much larger im­
pacts on information seeking on climate adaptation, and climate
knowledge. On the other hand, there are little to no effects on climate
mitigation behaviors.
5
The rationale is that the daily-level analyses presented so far show the
immediate response of temperature on public interests on climate change.
However, when a three-day moving average is used as the dependent variable,
the model will now capture longer-term effects of temperature on, say, 1st
January, on search volume from 1st January to 3rd January.
4.3. Results by search keywords
While earlier studies conclude that exposure to local weather
changes will prompt information seeking on climate change, we expand
upon this literature to show that the Chinese public seeks information in
a highly purposeful manner. That is, individuals are much more likely to
seek out climate knowledge information that allows them to assess
current and future susceptibility, and climate adaptation information
that offers direct protection or alleviation against adverse weather. In
this sub-section, we further segregate keywords from each topic into
sub-categories based on their relevance to the local temperature
conditions.
If individuals are indeed searching for information to appraise
threats and coping responses according to the PMT, then it should also
be the case that the information they are looking out for is directly
related to the local weather. On the other hand, if we observe that the
Chinese public is also searching for information that is tangentially
related to climate change, then we would be less sure of PMT being an
adequate framework to examine how local weather affects climate
change-related behaviors.
To test Hypothesis 3a, we first separate the keywords in the topic of
Knowledge into three sub-categories of i) global warming and temper­
ature changes, ii) secondary climate impacts, and iii) other atmospheric
pollution. Similarly, keywords in Adaptation are sorted into three sub-
categories of i) adaptation to high heat, ii) general adaptation to tem­
perature, and iii) adaptation to extreme events (see Table 1 for the
keywords in each sub-category). These keywords are grouped in a
descending manner where the higher-ordered categories contain words
or phrases that are much more related to local temperature.
For the sake of brevity, we will only present and discuss results using

12
J. Li et al. Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698

Table A3
Climate change information seeking by climatic zones.
Dep. var. Severe cold Cold Mild Hot summers and cold winters Hot summers and mild winters

Panel A. Climate knowledge

Average temperature 0.003 0.001 − 0.007 − 0.021*** − 0.014
(0.002) (0.003) (0.009) (0.005) (0.012)
Temperature-square 0.000* 0.000*** 0.001*** 0.001*** 0.000
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Constant 1.596 − 1.884 − 14.968 22.407 − 20.737
(5.908) (3.080) (31.579) (16.597) (15.130)
Observations 176,295 334,787 84,436 398,217 162,135
Adj. R-squared 0.571 0.636 0.540 0.535 0.617

Panel B. Climate adaptation

Average temperature 0.011*** − 0.016*** − 0.131*** − 0.077*** − 0.146***
(0.002) (0.003) (0.018) (0.005) (0.016)
Temperature-square 0.001*** 0.002*** 0.006*** 0.003*** 0.005***
(0.000) (0.000) (0.001) (0.000) (0.000)
Constant − 0.464 1.853 − 7.655 39.051* − 13.360
(7.956) (5.713) (20.036) (21.921) (26.961)
Observations 176,295 334,787 84,436 398,217 162,135
Adj. R-squared 0.593 0.754 0.580 0.565 0.670

Panel C. Climate mitigation

Average temperature − 0.001 0.003 0.022** − 0.001 0.015
(0.002) (0.002) (0.010) (0.004) (0.009)
Temperature-square − 0.000 − 0.000* − 0.000* 0.000 − 0.000*
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Constant 1.153 7.996** 9.954 21.656 6.343
(4.475) (3.521) (29.823) (14.856) (13.041)
Observations 176,295 334,787 84,436 398,217 162,135
Adj. R-squared 0.578 0.721 0.571 0.564 0.635

Notes: All regressions are estimated with calendar date fixed effects, city-year-month fixed effects, and weather controls (precipitation, sea level pressure, relative
humidity, wind speed, hours of sunlight, and all of their quadratics).

temperature intervals and temperature anomalies.6
First, we plot the coefficients for each temperature interval in Fig. 3
to provide an overall view of how information seeking is affected across
all temperature bins. The left-hand-side graph on Panel A shows the
results for keywords related to climate knowledge. Just as the earlier
results, we observe a lot more information seeking on hot days. How­
ever, it is clear that most of these searches are prompted by climate
change keywords that are most related to high temperature. On the
other hand, other climate knowledge-related keywords that have lesser
connections to high temperature or temperature changes are not as
frequently searched by Chinese residents.
Second, the right-hand-side graph on Panel A shows similar out­
comes for keywords related to climate adaptation. As predicted by the
PMT, we see that Chinese residents’ information-seeking behaviors are
mostly motivated by the need for coping with high temperatures, which
means that keywords more related to heat adaptation are much more
commonly searched for. For instance, on a temperature-above-30 ◦ C
day, keywords on heat adaptation increased by more than 100%. On the
other hand, adaptation keywords on general weather adaptation
increased by only 16%.
Third, the results for temperature anomalies again reflect the earlier
findings (Fig. 3, Panel B). We observe a U-shaped relationship between
search volume and temperature anomalies where the extreme ends elicit
more information-seeking behaviors. Importantly, we see that keywords
most related to high temperature or temperature changes have the
largest coefficients. Not surprisingly, this is especially true for positive
temperature anomalies or “hotter-than-expected” weather.
4.4. Results by underlying climatic conditions
Another dimension in which we can show that information seeking
on climate change is dependent on local conditions is by exploiting
spatial variation in climatic conditions. For instance, it is less likely for
warm days to prompt notions of climate change and searches for coping
responses if residents in that location are already accustomed to high
temperature.
In this regard, we test Hypothesis 3b by first categorizing Chinese
cities into one of five climate classification zones as defined by the
country’s official building code (Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural
Development of the People’s Republic of China, 2016). The Chinese
government uses these classifications to determine appropriate building
codes for each region. The entire country is segregated into five climatic
zones based on the average weather conditions they experience in each
season: i) severe cold, ii) cold, iii) mild, iv) cold winters and warm
summers, and v) mild winters and warm summers (Fig. 4).
Based on these classifications, Hypothesis 3b predicts that residents
from the colder or less warm regions, i.e., climatic zones (i), (ii), and
(iii), are much more likely to seek information on climate change on
warm days. On the other hand, residents from the hotter zones (iv) and
(v) are less likely to require additional information to appraise suscep­
tibility and coping responses for warm days due to their underlying
climatic conditions.
Similar to the earlier section, we will only present results using
temperature intervals and temperature anomalies.7 Panel A of Fig. 5
plots temperature coefficients for each interval across five climatic zones
and three climate-related topics. As hypothesized, we see a very clear
pattern where search activities for climate knowledge and adaptation
have the largest coefficients on warm days in climatic zones where hot

6 7
The other results obtained using continuous temperature, and heatwaves The other results obtained using continuous temperature, and heatwaves
and cold-spells offer similar conclusions, and are available in Tables A1 and A2. and cold-spells offer similar conclusions, and are available in Tables A3 and A4.

13
J. Li et al. Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698

Table A4 researchers explored if objective and observable factors can better

Climate change information seeking by climatic zones. persuade the public into believing the phenomenon of climate change,
Dep. var. Severe Cold Mild Hot Hot thereby increasing support for mitigation and adaptation policies. Due
cold summers summers to its saliency, one of the most commonly studied objective factors is
and cold and mild local weather trends. The rationale is that since climate is inherently
winters winters
related to short-term weather, personal experiences of fluctuations in
Panel A. the latter should remind the public of climate change (Whitmarsh,
Climate 2008). Indeed, there are many studies affirming that public support and
knowledge
Heatwave 0.134*** 0.105*** − 0.002 0.019*** 0.028***
interest in climate change increases during occurrences of anomalous
(0.041) (0.021) (0.017) (0.004) (0.007) temperature and/or extreme weather events (e.g., Lang, 2014a; Sisco
Cold-spell − 0.000 0.000 − 0.003 − 0.001 0.021 et al., 2017b). However, despite record-breaking temperatures across
(0.000) (0.000) (0.003) (0.002) (0.049) the world and increased frequencies of hazardous weather events over
Constant 3.392 − 0.693 − 8.537 34.389** − 20.498
the past decades, we still do not observe a translation of climate change
(5.938) (2.991) (30.183) (16.284) (15.854)
Observations 176,295 334,787 84,436 398,217 162,135 awareness into stronger political support for climate mitigation policies
Adj. R- 0.571 0.636 0.540 0.535 0.617 or reinforcement of individuals’ mitigation efforts (Stoddard et al.,
squared 2021).
In this regard, the main objective of this study is to examine the
Panel B. conundrum of why changing weather patterns fail to translate into
Climate greater public support for climate mitigation by taking a closer and more
adaptation
structured examination of how local weather prompts information-
Heatwave 0.131*** 0.046*** 0.079*** 0.016*** 0.053***
(0.039) (0.009) (0.027) (0.004) (0.012)
seeking behaviors in climate change.
Cold-spell − 0.000 0.000 0.006* 0.003** 0.049* Using the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) introduced by Rogers
(0.000) (0.000) (0.003) (0.001) (0.028) (1975), we hypothesize that while changes to local weather would
Constant 13.047 − 0.497 − 36.540 77.776*** − 28.438 prompt higher public interest in climate change, it is more precise to say
(8.371) (6.124) (22.569) (23.591) (34.495)
that the public is seeking out information to appraise threats of climate
Observations 176,295 334,787 84,436 398,217 162,135
Adj. R- change and cost-effectiveness of coping responses.
squared In this regard, two important questions remain: what information
does the public seek, and what does it tell us about their eventual
Panel C. behaviors?
Climate To examine the relationship between local weather and public in­
mitigation terest in climate change, we follow established literature by using daily-
Heatwave 0.036 0.001 0.254*** 0.001 0.006
level internet search volume from the most widely-used search engine in
(0.037) (0.014) (0.017) (0.003) (0.005)
Cold-spell − 0.000 0.000 − 0.005 − 0.002 − 0.008 China – Baidu – as the proxy for information seeking or public interest.
(0.000) (0.000) (0.003) (0.002) (0.022) We first find that, similar to other studies in this literature, internet
Constant − 0.002 8.647** 20.769 23.810 6.050 search volume on keywords related to climate change increases on days
(4.362) (3.409) (27.345) (14.650) (13.171) of abnormally high or low temperatures, and during heatwaves and cold
Observations 176,295 334,787 84,436 398,217 162,135
Adj. R- 0.578 0.721 0.571 0.564 0.635
spells. However, it needs to be emphasized that higher temperatures
squared elicit much more information-seeking activities on climate change
compared to days with lower temperatures.
Notes: All regressions are estimated with calendar date fixed effects, city-year-
Second, we find that attention or public interest is not equally
month fixed effects, and weather controls (precipitation, sea level pressure,
relative humidity, wind speed, hours of sunlight, and all of their quadratics).
dispersed when we categorize climate change-related keywords into
Heatwave is included as number of days, and is defined as at least three three disparate topics: i) knowledge, ii) mitigation, and iii) adaptation.
consecutive days where daily temperature is above 90th percentile of historical Consistent with the hypotheses formed using PMT, we find that on days
temperatures. Cold-spell is included as number of days, and is defined as at least with anomalous temperatures, the Chinese public is much more likely to
three consecutive days where daily temperature is below 10th percentile of seek out information related to climate adaptation, followed by climate
historical temperatures. Standard errors in parentheses, and are clustered at city- change knowledge. In contrast, there is little to no interest in seeking
level. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1. information on climate mitigation behaviors. A plausible explanation is
that information on climate knowledge and adaptation could help in­
weather is least experienced. Similar to earlier findings and consistent dividuals appraise environmental threats and coping measures, while
with the PMT, we still do not detect any statistically significant effects information on climate mitigation could not.
for information seeking on climate mitigation regardless of climatic Third, we further refine our findings to show that the climate change-
zones. related information sought by the public is conditional on specific
The results for temperature anomalies are however different (Panel B weather patterns and climatic conditions of residence. For example,
of Fig. 5). While we still observe the same U-shaped relationship be­ Chinese residents are much more likely to search for heat-related effects
tween anomalies and search volume, there are no discernible differences of climate change on a hot day, rather than tangential information such
between climatic zones. A persuasive explanation is that the tempera­ as glaciers retreat as information on the latter does not help individuals
ture anomalies have essentially eliminated or controlled for the inherent to assess realistic threats. Similarly, residents from cooler parts of China
climatic differences between different regions. As such, there is no are much more likely to search for climate change-related information
reason to expect why a 2 ◦ C anomalies is different for an individual in a on a hot day, compared to their counterparts from warmer regions. Our
cool climate compared to someone from a warmer region. interpretation of these results is that residents from the latter are already
acclimatized to such weather conditions.
5. Conclusions and discussions In summary, our findings offer the following policy and research
implications.
Compared to other environmental problems, issues surrounding First, many studies concluded that extreme temperatures or severe
climate change have always been politically and scientifically contro­ weather events will prompt public belief in climate change, thus leading
versial (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004; Corbett and Durfee, 2004). In turn, to a window of opportunity for policy outreach (e.g., Egan and Mullin,

14
J. Li et al.
2012; Kim et al., 2021; Zaval et al., 2014). We deviate from this opti­
mistic outlook as we show that, while local weather will indeed prompt
interest in climate change, the public is not randomly seeking out all
information related to climate change or even generally interested in
this subject. Instead, as predicted by the Protection Motivation Theory
(PMT), in the face of local weather changes, increased search volumes
are mostly driven by climate adaptation topics as residents seek out
ways to cope with current and future extreme temperatures. Conse­
quently, GHG emissions may instead increase resource usage since
climate adaptation behaviors often have large carbon or environmental
footprint (Qin et al., 2022; Zhao et al., 2015) or even lead individuals to
acclimatize to new temperature baselines (Moore et al., 2019). Our
findings suggest a footrace between climate adaptation and mitigation,
and underscore the urgent need for efforts in the latter (Stoddard et al.,
2021). Similarly, given these results, it is likely that policymakers and
the mass media cannot rely on attention-grabbing weather abnormal­
ities to generate public interest in climate mitigation efforts. Instead,
tailored policies are needed to encourage the public to adopt less carbon-
intensive behaviors (Dubois et al., 2019).
Second, our findings also need to be situated within existing studies
which found that support for climate mitigation policies is positively
associated with experience with extreme weather (e.g., Constantino
et al., 2022; Osberghaus and Demski, 2019; Sisco and Weber, 2022).
Rather than being mutually exclusive, the contrast between this
study and others can be attributed to the distinct characteristics of two
categories of climate change mitigation behaviors: individual-level and
collective-level behaviors (Lacroix et al., 2022). We focus on the former,
such as recycling, adhering to a vegetarian diet, practicing energy con­
servation whereas the other studies focused on latter, such as supporting
renewable energy policies and voting for climate-friendly parties. While
not explicitly investigated here or in other studies, it is plausible that
personal experiences with extreme weather have different impacts on
public interest on climate mitigation policies and direct behavioral
changes to reduce one’s carbon footprint. As both types of mitigation
efforts are needed to reduce GHG emissions (IPCC, 2022; Newell et al.,
2022; Stoddard et al., 2021), a direct and needed extension of this line of
work is to examine if there are different drivers behind individual viz-a-
viz collective mitigation efforts.
Third, despite the large volume of existing studies, this is surprisingly
one of the few conducted in developing countries’ settings. It is obvious
that global decarbonization cannot take place without cooperation from
developing countries, hence it is important to understand public senti­
ments and beliefs toward climate change from these parts of the world.
In this study, we demonstrate the viability of using readily available “big
data” sources, as hypotheses formed using PMT are verified and exam­
ined by using information on internet search volume. While our findings
are generalizable to China, we need to carefully consider if they are
applicable to other parts of the world. For instance, Jakučionytė-
Skodienė and Liobikienė (2021) found that risk perception, cost-
effectiveness, and response efficacy appraisals of climate change vary
among individuals with different levels of economic development, cul­
tural values, and ideological backgrounds. As such, while the PMT
framework can also be applied in similar manners to other countries, the
generated hypotheses are likely to be different across places. For
instance, in lesser-developed economies, it is possible that cost-effective
adaptation measures are dominated by low-cost options such as electric
fans or frequenting public air-conditioner spaces. As such, to generate a
broader knowledge base, our study approach can be readily applied to
data-scarce countries, which are mostly located in developing parts of
the world.
Lastly, this is study is not without limitations. For one thing, a
common but deserved criticism of internet-sourced data (e.g., search
engines or social media) is that we do not observe actual behaviors or
intentions. In the context of our findings, while we find that the Chinese
public is seeking out information on climate adaptation, it is unclear the
extent to which they translate into actual adoption behaviors or their
15
Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698
intentions behind the searches. In this regard, more detailed data
sources with information on actual behaviors will further our under­
standing of how the public reacts toward climate change.
Second, while the PMT predicts that local weather changes do not
prompt higher interest in climate mitigation behaviors, it does not mean
that the Chinese public is not interested in reducing or mitigating their
GHG emissions. To be sure, the data shows significant search activities
for climate mitigation behaviors. However, it is beyond the scope of this
study to examine in detail the environmental, social, or economic factor
(s) contributing to public interest in climate mitigation. As successful
mitigation of GHG emissions is the key to alleviating climate change,
future research should take a closer look into the trigger points of in­
dividuals’ and households’ mitigation behaviors.
Third, it is apparent that the PMT with its appraisal of risk and coping
responses is a highly rational and cognitive process (Rogers, 1983).
However, it is also true that there are other predictors of responses to­
ward climate change which are more affective in nature – e.g., fear,
anxiety (van Valkengoed and Steg, 2019). More generally, Loewenstein
et al. (2001) expounded the “risk-as-feeling” framework where risk
perceptions, encompassing both cognitive and affective components,
exert significant influence on decision-making. They further predict that
behaviors driven by the latter are likely to be more extreme than the
former, especially when risks are not within control of the individual
(Loewenstein et al., 2001). While our dataset does not allow us to
separately identify the cognitive and affective components behind
climate change information seeking behaviors, surveys that contain
detailed socioeconomic characteristics, locational history, and various
climate change perceptions and behaviors can better isolate these
different aspects of decision-making.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Jun Li: Data curation, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing –
original draft, Writing – review & editing. Ping Qin: Conceptualization,
Supervision, Writing – review & editing. Yifei Quan: Methodology,
Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Jie-Sheng Tan-Soo:
Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Supervision, Writing – review &
editing, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to two anonymous referees for providing helpful
comments, and to PCC@RUC for providing computing support.
Generous financial support was given by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (grant.: 72173126, 72134006) [to Q.P.], and by the
Singapore Ministry of Education Tier 1 FRC grant (grant: A-8000736-00-
00) [to J.S.T.S].
Appendix A
J. Li et al. Global Environmental Change 81 (2023) 102698

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