U.S. meteorologists say the deadly storms tearing up the South are not a result of climate change. None the less, the extreme weather has rekindled the global warming debate in Washington, D.C.

But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 51% of American Adults think the recent severe weather is primarily caused by long-term planetary trends. Only 19% blame the extreme weather on human activity which many climate change activists view as the cause of global warming. Twelve percent (12%) say there's some other cause for the bad weather, and 19% more are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

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The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on May 10-11, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.