Climate protests are on the rise, demanding urgent action from governments and the public. As more recent climate protests often employ disruptive methods, such as food throwing, airport and road blockades, their effects on public discourse regarding climate change and support for climate action remain understudied. We aim to bridge this gap by evaluating the effects of three situational protest factors concomitantly: 1) the level of protest disruption, 2) severity of police involvement and 3) perceived personal costs to protest observers on a set of outcomes related to the perceived salience of climate issues and protest support. We drew on existing protest literature to develop hypotheses and tested them using a pre-registered 2x3x2+1 factorial survey experiment in Germany (N = 11,605). The study relied on pre-tested images of real climate activism. The findings reveal a significant negative effect of protest disruption and (violent) police presence on the salience of climate change and protest support while personal costs had no impact on any outcomes. Our research contributes to the existing literature on environmental politics by identifying critical situational factors which affect the perceptions of climate-related protest dynamics. Ultimately, the results offer insights into optimal protest strategies for effective climate advocacy, especially given the diversity of climate protest goals (e.g. raising awareness, policy change, change in individual behaviour) as well as their target audience (e.g. vulnerable groups, climate deniers or the general public).