But on a certain level, why people are asking the question matters less than that they are. So I prefer to think that at least some people are asking in good faith. While Americans overwhelmingly accept the science of climate change, most only think about the issue for maybe a few minutes a month . That’s not enough time to really dig into the physics and chemistry of a changing climate. Part of my job is to help make sense of it for people who don’t spend days reading scientific journals.

At the same time, Americans on average spend 90 percent of our time indoors, which means we’re not the most perceptive watchers of weather. Unless you’re a farmworker or otherwise work outdoors, we don’t really notice the winter days that are unusually balmy but still require us to wear a coat. We do, however, remember the days when we have to throw on several pairs of thermal underwear, a hat, a scarf, and our thickest jacket before heading outdoors. And in fact, those days seem even colder, relative to the days that are weirdly warm.

On unusually warm winter days — not the days when the thermostat suddenly hits 70 degrees, as it did in Washington, D.C., shortly after the polar freeze, but the days when it should be 40 but is 50 — nobody really comments. Given that context, questioning frigid temperatures in a warming climate makes intuitive if not scientific sense. As a reporter, that just means I have to find new ways of giving the same answers.

The answer, by the way, is that climate isn’t weather. Weather is what’s happening over the short term, climate is what happens over the long term. The National Centers for Environmental Information, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says that weather tells us what to wear on a given day, while climate tells us what we should put in our closets. It’s why you don’t find many South Floridians with an extensive down coat collection.