In the thick of summer, little else can seem more appealing than the promised respite of an ice cream cone or a chilled can of soda. Turns out that as climate change warms up the planet, that sugary siren song is getting louder: A new study published last week in the journal Nature Climate Change found that as temperatures have gotten hotter, Americans have been buying more artificially sweetened treats.

By examining a national sample of U.S. household consumer purchases between 2004 and 2019, and cross-comparing that with localized weather data, analyzing temperatures, precipitation, humidity, and wind speed, the researchers found that added sugar consumption for Americans has been rising in lockstep with average temperatures. They also used climate projections to predict how these trend

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