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In more than a decade of reporting on climate change I can say one thing with absolute certainty.
在這二十多年的報道天氣變化預報的時間里，我對一件事還是能夠打保票的。
When it's cold outside, like during this recent polar vortex in the U.S., people start thinking this whole global warming thing must be overblown.
當外面天氣寒冷時，就像美國最近幾年發生的極地漩渦現象，人們開始認為全球變暖現象似乎言過其實了。
The opposite is also true.
但是實際情況其實正相反。
Which is why the next summer of El Nino is going to do more for action to combat climate change than any activist or scientific study.
這就是為什么接下來的這個夏天將要發生的厄爾尼諾現象會越來越超過世上任何一個環保積極分子或者氣候學家們的研究結果。
Don't believe me?
不相信我么？
A new social science study in the journal Nature Climate Change backs my anecdotal experience.
一項相關的最新科研報告已發表在自然雜質氣候變化特刊上面，它能支持我的上述經驗之談。
The report describes the so-called local warming effect.
該研究報告描述了所謂的地區變暖現象。
This effect is a result of people tending to rely on, quote "less relevant but available information… in place of more diagnostic but less accessible information."
這其實是人們更趨于相信的一個結果，例如人們 認為此現象的觀點的變化:“不太相關但是確有其事….代替了多為經驗判斷而缺少可靠事實依據。”
In other words, today's temperature matters a lot more to belief in the problem of global warming than any understanding of how climate change actually works.
換句話說，現在對氣溫這件事起因于全球變暖，比任何根據氣候變化模型的實際研究結果更讓人感覺靠譜。
The social scientists ascribe such thinking to the fact that a cold spell or heat wave prompts memories of other similar weather events and thus makes one more or less likely to believe in global warming at that moment.
社會學家們認為此事乃寒期或暖波促進其它同類天氣變化事件的存儲，并且，因此使人或多或少相信此時此刻全球在變暖。
And that means the recent bitter chill of the polar vortex wasn't unusual for prompting climate skepticism.
這就意味著，近期的極地斡旋帶來的嚴寒并不是普通的迅速導致氣候變化這種懷疑論觀點的例證。
What was really unusual was how many decades it had been since the last deep freeze in the 1990s—and how quickly we forget.
更可疑的其實是，自從上一個從二十世紀90年代開始的，人類歷史上最近階段經歷著的這次深度冰凍期還將持續多長時間—以及我們忘記這件事的速度有多快。
