From mid-December till early January, the UK experienced a curse of extreme weather due to strong winter storms, which brought widespread impact on environment, business and daily life.

The first storm brought very strong winds to Scotland and northern England and a major storm surge affecting North Sea coastline.

Finally, in early January, strong winds combined with high spring tides and river flows, resulted in high water levels affecting exposed coastal communities and causing coastal flooding in the south and west.

Somerset, Devon and Cornwall were among the areas of the country worst-hit by the flooding, which left a record 7,000 properties swamped and about 49,000 hectares of agricultural land under water in just one week in February. The flooding caused millions of pounds of damage.

The ECIU (Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit) is a new initiative which aims to support informed debate on energy and climate issues in the UK.

Half of the people, who polled for ECIU, believe that widespread flooding in early 2014 convinced them that climate change is taking place. Overall, 57% of people thought that climate change is caused by humans, while 28% thought the climate was changing but human activity was not mainly responsible.

Just one in nine people (11%) said that almost all climate scientists believe that human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, are mainly responsible for rising temperatures.

The survey also reveals that 14% of those quizzed thought that "green" energy policies had pushed up energy bills a great deal, 37% thought they had somewhat increased bills and 34% said they had made no difference.

ECIU director Richard Black said: "This survey shows that there's a huge gap between reality and perception on some key climate and energy issues".