According to a national model of climate change perceptions, about 65% of Spokane County residents believe that Earth's climate is changing and only about 45% believe that humans are to blame for the change.

A model was developed by Yale University and Utah State University researchers in a bid to track public opinions of global warming across more than 3,000 US counties.

The model was based on surveys of 13,000 people, along with analyses of counties' demographic characteristics. These include including factors such as political views and education levels.

It was found that most residents (74%) of King County in Washington are most likely to believe that global warming is real others (55 percent) believe it is caused mainly due to human-activity.

In Lewis County 56% of residents in the rural, Southwest Washington county think warming is taking place while 40% believe that it's being caused by humans. Idaho had a similar divide.

In Latah County 67% of residents believe in global warming compared to 52% in neighboring Benewah County.

According to Peter Howe, a Utah State assistant professor and lead author of a recent article on the modeling in the Nature Climate Change journal, the work of planning for a changing climate, which includes protecting communities from increased risk of wildfires or flooding, falls mostly to state and local governments.

However, climate change surveys are done at the national level a lot of expense is involved in polling. Howe said, "We wanted a tool to provide these decision-makers with data on what people in their areas think about these issues".

Skagit Climate Change, a nonprofit group of scientists is partnering with Yale on the phone polling in Skagit County. Phone surveys of 1,000 Skagit County residents will help test the model's accuracy in Washington.