When climate change leads the news, it’s often down to a hurricane, heatwave or flood. And, judging by The Conversation's most widely read environment stories over the past decade, extreme weather really is one of the main ways the public (or at least our readers) learns about climate breakdown.

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The movie Twisters is released this week, a remake of the 1996 film with an added “s”. Simon Dickinson of the University of Plymouth says the fact Hollywood commissioned a remake is further evidence that “people are fascinated by extreme weather and the devastation it can cause”.

Dickinson explains there is a deep underlying psychology behind this, beyond people simply wanting to see stuff crash and burn. For him, people are interested in extreme weather and watch movies and videos of hurricanes, tornadoes and so on, “because they connect us to people, places and ideas. Sometimes, this is about being able to visualise concepts we’ve heard about but never seen with our own eyes.”

He recently conducted a study examining why people were watching live footage of hurricanes and storms on YouTube:

Cyclones that have hit India: What you should know?

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