In contrast, dealing with the nation’s energy problems ranked sixth in the poll  just behind education and social security  with 60 percent of voters endorsing it as a top priority.

The declining interest in global warming and other environmental issues might be unsurprising at a time when Americans face far more imminent threats to their jobs and homes. “Strengthening the nation’s economy” was the top-ranked concern of voters in the Pew poll. A relatively cool year and a harsh winter in North America and Europe have not helped, inspiring some commentators and a small cluster of scientists to make skeptical remarks about “global cooling.”

Social scientists say that environmental concerns are often the first to fall off the table when any more immediate threat surfaces. Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Research Center, said a similar pattern was seen in the Pew poll after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when second-tier issues faded in voters’ minds.

“Concern for terrorism overshadowed all else,” Mr. Kohut said.

The public’s waning interest in global warming poses a challenge for Mr. Obama, who emphasized climate change throughout his campaign and pledged to seek a cap on emissions in the United States of heat-trapping gases, led by carbon dioxide, which come mainly from burning coal and oil. Such a cap, even if it includes various mechanisms intended to ease the cost, would by design raise the price of energy coming from those fossil fuels, which still underpin the American and the global economies.

Mr. Obama’s political foes have already seized on the cooling of public concern.

Marc Morano, the communications director for the Republican minority on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has been sending out e-mail alerts, sometimes several a day, highlighting stories on winter weather and other surveys suggesting a shift in public attitudes.