Lawrence C. Hamilton

University of New Hampshire | UNH · Department of Sociology

This paper analyzes the formation dates of the n th storm in a sequence for all named North Atlantic tropical cyclones and assesses whether the intraseasonal length of the Atlantic hurricane season has changed temporally. The record-breaking 2020 season, with 30 named storms, set records for the earliest 3 rd TC formation (Cristobal) and from the 6...

Previous research on climate-relevant knowledge distinguishes between two types: belief-linked (facts which can be guessed based on general climate beliefs) and belief-neutral (facts which require specific knowledge). To better understand these differences, we used data from nationwide US 2016 and 2021 surveys to develop composite indicators of the...

This study quantifies the state-of-the-art in the rapidly growing field of seasonal Arctic sea ice prediction. A novel multi-model dataset of retrospective seasonal predictions of September Arctic sea ice is created and analyzed, consisting of community contributions from 17 statistical models and 17 dynamical models. Prediction skill is compared o...

Although the hazards posed by greenhouse warming and COVID-19 are quite different, diagnosis and mitigation prospects for both depend heavily on science. Unfortunately, the reality of both threats has been subject to politicized science rejection in the US, making these deadly problems less tractable. There are substantial parallels between the two...

Although Greenland is a hub for climate science, the climate perceptions of Greenland’s predominantly Indigenous population have remained largely unstudied. Here we present two nationally representative surveys and show that Greenlanders are more likely than residents of top oil-producing Arctic countries to perceive that climate change is happenin...

Plain Language Summary We have collected, analyzed, and disseminated seasonal forecasts of September sea ice over 2008–2022. Here, we analyze the skill of these forecasts. We show that individual forecasts of September sea ice extent (SIE) have limited skill, but the median forecast shows skill that is at least as good as a statistical benchmark. O...

Greenland’s residents and Ice Sheet are both exposed to pronounced Arctic warming. Although Greenland is a hub for climate science, the climate perceptions of Greenland’s predominantly Indigenous population remained unstudied through the past decade of multi-national climate opinion polls. Conducting two original nationally representative surveys,...

Understanding the factors that increase or decrease the likelihood for public support of aquaculture is critical for it to achieve its social sustainability prospects. Previous studies across the globe have identified a series of indicators linked to public support for aquaculture. We tested their validity with a national US sample and found that m...

This unusual book, published to honor the late iconoclast and geologist extraordinaire Warren Bell Hamilton, comprises a diverse, cross-disciplinary collection of bold new ideas in Earth and planetary science. Some chapters audaciously point out all-too-obvious deficits in prevailing theories. Other ideas are embryonic and in need of testing and st...

“Follow the science” became the mantra for responding to COVID-19 pandemic. However, for the public this also meant “follow the scientists”, and this led to uneasiness as some viewed scientists as not credible. We investigate how beliefs about the way scientists develop their findings affect pandemic-related views. Our analysis shows that beliefs a...

Objective We investigate how beliefs about scientists and presidents affect views about two pandemics, Zika virus (2016) and COVID-19 (2020). Methods Three New Hampshire surveys in 2016 and 2020 provide data to test how beliefs about scientists’ practices and presidential approval relate to pandemic views. Results Support for presidents consisten...

Background Research on the social bases of environmental concern has established robust findings across various sociodemographic characteristics. This includes interaction effects between education and political identity, as well as particularly low concern among supporters of President Trump. Objectives Using 2016 survey data, we extend such rese...

The COVID-19 pandemic has been marked by political divisions in U.S. public trust of scientists. Such divisions are well known on other topics, but regarding COVID-19 they arose suddenly, with disastrous results. Distrust of scientists elsewhere has been variously explained in terms of belief systems, cognitive factors, peer influences, or elite cu...

In the summer of 2020, mitigation efforts slowed the first US wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts warned, however, that without coordinated, sustained mitigation—such as testing and tracing, limited travel or gatherings, social distancing and mask wearing—the worst could lie ahead. A July survey found majority (59%) agreement with the expert war...

In this study the impact of extreme cyclones on Arctic sea ice in summer is investigated. Examined in particular are relative thermodynamic and dynamic contributions to sea ice volume budgets in the vicinity of Arctic summer cyclones in 2012 and 2016. Results from this investigation illustrate sea ice loss in the vicinity of the cyclone trajectorie...

This first analysis of aggregated data from the Kahoot! game-based player response system demonstrates that it can provide assessments of overall US student polar knowledge and identifies differences in polar knowledge across several states. A kahoot online quiz on polar topics recorded over 25,000 United States teacher-hosted classroom players (mo...

Outreach and communication with the public have substantial value in polar research, where studies often find changes of global importance that are happening far out of sight from the majority of people living at lower latitudes. Seeking evidence on the effectiveness of outreach programs, the U.S. National Science Foundation sponsored large-scale s...

Decisions about dams, like other environmental conflicts, involve complex trade-offs between different water uses with varying human and ecological impacts, have significant impacts on public resources, and involve many stakeholders with diverse and often conflicting interests. Given the many upcoming dam decisions in New England and across the Uni...

Transportation infrastructure such as highways and bridges requires upgrades and maintenance. In many U.S. regions, these requirements have surpassed current funding, so new solutions are needed. One obvious though imperfect source is gasoline taxes, but raising these is politically risky, regardless of need. To illuminate this conflict, we analyze...

Multiple-survey analysis showing (1) climate-change views are politically determined among conservatives, more so than among liberals; (2) climate-change views correlate with party and ideology so consistently, they appear to measure the same latent variable (political identity); and (3) having mostly same-party friends multiplies the effects of po...

Wildfire is a growing threat in the western US, driven by high fuel loads, a warming climate, and rising human activity in the wildland urban interface. Diverse stakeholders must collaborate to mitigate risk and adapt to changing conditions. Communication strategies in collaborative efforts may be most effective if they align with local perspective...

Gray wolves (Canis lupus) were eliminated from the state of Oregon in the middle of the 20th century. By the early 21st century, wolves had returned to the northeast corner of the state, dispersing from populations reintroduced in Idaho and Wyoming. On a series of random‐sample telephone surveys (2011–2018), we asked more than 3,000 northeast Orego...

Analysis of climate and other environmental questions on three regional survey projects conducted over 2017-2020 (9,000+ interviews) elaborate on the well-known importance of political factors by adding support for three newer propositions. First, strength of political identification predicts climate-change views within the ranks of conservatives b...

Climate change is a formidable topic, challenging the research efforts of countless scientists across many different fields. Surveys find surprisingly high levels of confidence among nonscientists, however, regarding their own understanding of climate change. More than threefourths of the respondents on recent U.S. surveys claimed to understand eit...

The climate-change debate in the U.S. has increasingly turned from discussing climate data and scientific consensus to questioning the credibility of scientists. While disinterested unbiased assessment of data is a fundamental norm within the scientific community, it is unclear whether the public believes scientists are objective in their practices...

"Many of New Hampshire’s dams are reaching the end of their lifespan and require expensive maintenance or removal in order to meet safety standards. While engineers and public officials struggle with the scale of the challenge surrounding various dam management alternatives, including removal, what does the New Hampshire public think? In this brief...

The topics of climate change and renewable energy are often linked in policy discussions and scientific analysis, but public opinion on these topics exhibits both overlap and divergence. Although renewable energy has potentially broader acceptance than anthropogenic climate change, it can also face differently-based opposition. Analyses of US and r...

Warren B. Hamilton (1925-2018) was a widely traveled U.S. geologist whose work integrated observational geology and geophysics into planetary-scale syntheses. Hamilton’s early-career insights, before the advent of plate tectonics, include recognizing the need for continental mobility to explain the geology of the southern hemisphere and western Uni...

The topics of climate change and renewable energy often are linked in policy discussions and scientific analysis, but public opinion on these topics exhibits both overlap and divergence. Although renewable energy has potentially broader acceptance than anthropogenic climate change, it can also sometimes face differently-based opposition. Analyses o...

This report summarizes findings from 50 interviews with family forest owners in Wallowa, Grant, Crook and Wheeler counties in eastern Oregon in 2015. We conducted interviews as part of the Communities and Forests in Oregon (CAFOR) project in partnership with Wallowa Resources and Oregon State University Extension Service. These interviews sought to...

Non-industrial private forestland (NIPF) owners have options for engagement by following management strategies that reduce wildfire risk on their forestlands. Forest management engagement is a broad term with underlying categories and management implications. To better understand these categories, we examine interview data on the engagement of fore...

Arctic societies, like Arctic environments, exhibit variability and rapid change. Social and environmental changes are sometimes interconnected, but Arctic societies also are buffeted by socioeconomic forces which can create problems or drive changes that eclipse those with environmental roots. Social indicators research offers a general approach f...

Survey researchers often treat self-assessed understanding of climate change as a rough proxy for knowledge, which might affect what people believe about this topic. Self-assessments can be unrealistically high, however, and correlated with politics, so they deserve study in their own right. Turning the usual perspective around to view self-assesse...

The management decisions of private landowners affect forest structure and composition, and may impact the resilience of forested regions. In this case study we assessed barriers to both intentional and incidental climate-adaptive forest management among nonindustrial private forest owners in eastern Oregon, USA. In this context, incidental adaptat...

Public acceptance of the reality of human-caused climate change has risen gradually in the United States, reflecting cumulative impacts from scientific research and communication, and perhaps also from experienced manifestations such as extreme weather or change to familiar seasons. In the rural North Country of northern New England, a key manifest...

Background Renewable energy development is a necessary step toward climate change mitigation, so these topics have often been linked. In US public discourse, however, they have somewhat different profiles—climate change views are tied closely to partisan identity, whereas renewable energy exhibits more cross-cutting appeal, and sometimes more cross...

The relationship between stability and change in social-ecological systems has received considerable attention in recent years, including the expectation that significant environmental changes will drive observable consequences for individuals, communities, and populations. Migration, as one example of response to adverse economic or environmental...

How do choices among information sources reinforce political differences on topics such as climate change? Environmental sociologists have observed large-scale and long-term impacts from news media and think-tank reports, while experimental science-communication studies detect more immediate effects from variations in supplied information. Applying...

Increasingly frequent large wildfires in the western U.S. due to 20th century forest management practices and climate warming are raising questions about conifer forest resiliency. We sampled 180 transects 17-21 years post-fire across 8 fires in eastern Oregon’s Blue Mountains to determine the effects of fire legacy, topography, ecological interact...

In eastern Oregon, a semi-arid region dominated by dry forest, warming over the past few decades is affecting the productivity and health of forests that are central to the region's landscapes, economy, and culture. A warmer and drier climate will likely bring more frequent and severe wildfires and increase stress on water availability. The impacts...

There is a growing consensus that climate is changing, but beliefs about the causal factors vary widely among the general public. Current research shows that such causal beliefs are strongly influenced by cultural, political, and identity-driven views. We examined the influence that local perceptions have on the acceptance of basic facts about clim...

- Seventy-three percent of respondents on a nationwide survey say they trust science agencies such as NASA for information about climate change. - The second most-trusted source of information about climate change is family and friends (37%). - Despite political divisions, science agencies such as NASA are trusted by substantial majorities within e...

Graphs tracking annual change in population, along with births, deaths, and net migration, in 43 Arctic Alaska towns and villages 1990 to 2016.

The Polar, Environment, and Science (POLES) survey, carried out in two stages in August and November–December of 2016, is the most recent nationwide project to assess Arctic knowledge. The two-stage design allowed testing for differences before and after the U.S. election, but those turned out to be minor. Another unique aspect of this survey was i...

The Polar, Environment, and Science (POLES) survey, carried out in two stages in August and November–December of 2016, is the most recent nationwide project to assess Arctic knowledge. The two-stage design allowed testing for differences before and after the U.S. election, but those turned out to be minor. Another unique aspect of this survey was i...

The Polar, Environment, and Science (POLES) survey, carried out in two stages in August and November–December of 2016, is the most recent nationwide project to assess Arctic knowledge. The two-stage design allowed testing for differences before and after the U.S. election, but those turned out to be minor. Another unique aspect of this survey was i...

The Polar, Environment, and Science (POLES) survey, carried out in two stages in August and November–December of 2016, is the most recent nationwide project to assess Arctic knowledge. The two-stage design allowed testing for differences before and after the U.S. election, but those turned out to be minor. Another unique aspect of this survey was i...

Residents of towns and villages in Arctic Alaska live on ‘‘the front line of climate change.’’ Some communities face immediate threats from erosion and flooding associated with thawing permafrost, increasing river flows, and reduced sea ice protection of shorelines. The term climigration, referring to migration caused by climate change, originally...

Increasing the adaptive capacity of non-industrial private forest owners under changing climate and fire regimes requires an assessment of existing barriers to adaptation. Eastern Oregon provides an interesting case study for considering climate adaptation on private forestlands because of its socioeconomic history, frequent large wildfires and rec...

Questions about climate change elicit some of the widest political divisions of any items on recent U.S. surveys. Severe polarization affects even basic questions about the reality of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), or whether most scientists agree that humans are changing the Earth’s climate. Statements about scientific consensus have been con...

Research has led to broad agreement among scientists that anthropogenic climate change is happening now and likely to worsen. In contrast to scientific agreement, US public views remain deeply divided, largely along ideological lines. Science communication has been neutralised in some arenas by intense counter-messaging, but as adverse climate impa...

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1088937X.2016.1234518 Each Arctic summer since 2008, the Sea Ice Outlook (SIO) has invited researchers and the engaged public to contribute predictions regarding the September extent of Arctic sea ice. The public character of SIO, focused on a number whose true value soon becomes known, brings elements o...

Public opinion can impact the success of natural resource management policies and programs. In this case study, we assess the degree to which demographic and place-based factors are associated with changing public opinions on climate change, wolves, renewable energy, and land development regulations in rural northeast Oregon. Based on cross-section...

Annual population, net migration, births and deaths in 43 Arctic Alaska towns and villages, from 1990 to 2015: BETHEL CENSUS AREA -- Aniak, Bethel, Tuluksak DILLINGHAM CENSUS AREA -- Aleknagik, Dillingham, Manokotak, New Stuyahok, Togiak NOME CENSUS AREA -- Brevig Mission, Diomede, Elim, Gambell, Golovin, Koyuk, Nome, Saint Michael, Savoonga, Shakt...

Wildfire poses a rising threat in the western USA, fueled by synergies between historical fire suppression, changing land use, insects and disease, and shifts toward a drier, warmer climate. The rugged landscapes of northeast Oregon, with their historically forest- and resource-based economies, have been one of the areas affected. A 2011 survey fou...

Objective To explore the effects of long‐term climate trends and short‐term weather fluctuations, evaluations of scientists and science, political predispositions, religious affiliation, the information environment, and demographic attributes on individuals’ views about whether global warming exists and, if so, whether it is a result of natural cyc...

In 2015 New Hampshire experienced its warmest December on record. The temperature exceeded twentieth century average temperatures by a wider margin than for any month in historical records dating back to 1895. In February 2016, as part of an ongoing study of environmental perceptions, the Granite State Poll asked whether residents thought that New...

A simple question about climate change, with one choice designed to match consensus statements by scientists, was asked on 35 US nationwide, single-state or regional surveys from 2010 to 2015. Analysis of these data (over 28,000 interviews) yields robust and exceptionally well replicated findings on public beliefs about anthropogenic climate change...

On climate change and other topics, conservatives have taken positions at odds with a strong scientific consensus. Claims that this indicates a broad conservative distrust of science have been countered by assertions that while conservatives might oppose the scientific consensus on climate change or evolution, liberals oppose scientists on some oth...