Designing better climate research starts with understanding human emotions

Have you ever looked at a photograph of a raging wildfire, a flooded neighborhood or a starving polar bear and immediately felt something before you even had time to think? Most of us have.

That emotional reaction happens almost instantly. We do not first calculate sea-level rise or remember a scientific report. Instead, we experience sadness, fear, frustration, helplessness or even guilt within seconds.

As researchers studying climate change and mental health, we became interested in a simple question:

How do we actually measure those emotions?

Surprisingly, most existing research relies almost entirely on questionnaires. Participants are asked to read statements such as “I worry about climate change” or “Climate change makes me feel anxious,” then select a number on a rating scale. These tools have taught us a great deal about climate anxiety and related emotions. But they also have an important limitation: They ask people to describe emotions after they have already translated those feelings into words.

Real life rarely works that way. Most of our emotional experiences begin visually. We see a collapsing coastline, smoke filling a skyline or trees dying from drought. Long before we describe our feelings, we react emotionally.

That realization inspired our latest study, now published in Critical Public Health, in which we developed the Pictorial Climate Emotions Test (PiCET)—the first image-based tool designed to measure people’s immediate emotional responses to climate change. Rather than asking participants to read statements, PiCET presents a series of carefully selected photographs showing the impacts of climate change and asks a simple question: How strongly do these images affect you emotionally?

The idea sounds simple, but it represents a different way of thinking about climate emotions. Instead of asking people to remember how they generally feel about climate change, we capture the emotional response at the moment it occurs.

To evaluate whether this new approach works, our research team surveyed nearly 2,900 adults from four different countries. Participants viewed nine photographs depicting climate-related events such as wildfires, floods, drought, wildlife loss and environmental degradation. They then rated the intensity of their emotional reactions.

The results were encouraging. The images consistently measured a common emotional response across participants. People who reacted more strongly to the photographs also reported higher levels of climate anxiety, ecological grief, ecological guilt and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Interestingly, they were also more likely to report environmentally conscious behaviors, such as making more sustainable food choices.

This tells us something important. Climate emotions are not simply negative feelings to be avoided. They can also motivate action.

Feeling distressed by environmental destruction may encourage people to recycle, reduce food waste, support environmental policies or adopt more sustainable lifestyles. At the same time, when these emotions become overwhelming, they may contribute to psychological distress. Understanding where that balance lies is becoming increasingly important.

Every day, millions of people encounter images of climate change. News broadcasts, social media, documentaries and satellite photographs constantly expose us to environmental disasters happening around the world. Whether we live near those disasters or not, we experience many of them visually.

Images have become one of the primary ways we experience climate change. This observation is particularly relevant for researchers studying the built environment.

Climate change is often discussed in terms of infrastructure, transportation, housing and resilient cities. These are essential conversations. But the built environment is not only where climate change happens—it is also where people experience it.

A flooded street, an urban neighborhood suffering through an extreme heat wave, smoke covering a city skyline or a park transformed by drought all communicate climate change visually. These scenes influence how residents perceive risk, safety and the future of their communities.

In other words, climate resilience is not only about engineering solutions. It is also about understanding the human experience of living in changing places.

If we want to design healthier, more resilient communities, we need better ways to understand how people respond emotionally to environmental change. That is where image-based assessment may become especially valuable.

Unlike traditional questionnaires, photographs require very little reading and can be understood across different educational and cultural backgrounds. Participants simply respond to what they see. This makes image-based tools easier to administer and potentially more useful in large international studies where language differences often create barriers.

There is another advantage. Images often capture emotions that people struggle to describe.

Ask someone whether they feel anxious about climate change, and they may hesitate. Show them a photograph of homes submerged by flooding or forests consumed by fire, and their emotional response is immediate. That immediacy matters because emotions influence behavior.

Research increasingly shows that emotional responses often shape decisions more strongly than facts alone. People may understand the science of climate change without changing their behavior. But when environmental change becomes emotionally meaningful, it often becomes personally relevant.

This does not mean we should frighten people into action. Our goal is not to create stronger negative emotions. Instead, we hope to give researchers better tools to understand them.

Just as physicians measure blood pressure before treating heart disease, understanding climate emotions requires reliable ways to measure emotional responses before designing effective interventions. Better measurement can improve research in psychology, public health, environmental communication, education and even urban planning.

Imagine comparing how residents respond emotionally before and after a neighborhood receives new green infrastructure. Or studying whether restored parks, shaded streets or climate-resilient public spaces reduce emotional distress following extreme weather events.

These questions connect environmental design with human well-being in ways that have received surprisingly little attention.

As climate change continues to reshape our cities and landscapes, it will also reshape how people feel about the places they call home.

Those emotions deserve to be understood with the same care that we devote to measuring temperatures, rainfall or carbon emissions. Our study represents one small step toward that goal.

Sometimes, understanding climate change begins not with another survey question—but with simply asking someone how they feel when they look at the world around them.

This story is part of Science X Dialog, where researchers can report findings from their published research articles. Visit this page for information about Science X Dialog and how to participate.

Who’s behind this story?

Lisa Lock

BA art history, MA material culture. Former museum editor, paramedic, and transplant coordinator. Editing for Science X since 2021.

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Andrew Zinin

Master’s in physics with research experience. Long-time science news enthusiast. Plays key role in Science X’s editorial success.

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Amer Abukhalaf is an assistant professor at the Nieri Department of Construction and Real Estate Development, Clemson University. Abukhalaf is also a faculty scholar at the Clemson University School of Health Research. He researches risk management and safety design with a focus on natural hazards, built environment, crisis management, and emergency planning. Abukhalaf is also a civil engineer and a structural designer by practice and has a master’s in executive management from Ashland University in Ohio, and a Ph.D. from the University of Florida. He is a member of the Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Planning Division at the American Psychological Association.