From the National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and the Department of “ignored data in favor of modeled simulations” comes this claim from Trenberth’s mountain climate alarm lair. Only one problem: actual data on U.S. Temperature Extremes does not support the claim. See below.
Interaction of warming climate with a growing, shifting population could subject more people to sweltering conditions
BOULDER – U.S. residents’ exposure to extreme heat could increase four- to six-fold by mid-century, due to both a warming climate and a population that’s growing especially fast in the hottest regions of the country, according to new research.
The study, by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the City University of New York (CUNY), highlights the importance of considering societal changes when trying to determine future climate impacts.
“Both population change and climate change matter,” said NCAR scientist Brian O’Neill, one of the study’s co-authors. “If you want to know how heat waves will affect health in the future, you have to consider both.”
Extreme heat kills more people in the United States than any other weather-related event, and scientists generally expect the number of deadly heat waves to increase as the climate warms. The new study, published May 18 in the journal Nature Climate Change, finds that the overall exposure of Americans to these future heat waves would be vastly underestimated if the role of population changes were ignored.
The total number of people exposed to extreme heat is expected to increase the most in cities across the country’s southern reaches, including Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Tampa, and San Antonio.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, which is NCAR’s sponsor, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Climate, population, and how they interact
For the study, the research team used 11 different high-resolution simulations of future temperatures across the United States between 2041 and 2070, assuming no major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The simulations were produced with a suite of global and regional climate models as part of the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program.
Using a newly developed demographic model, the scientists also studied how the U.S. population is expected to grow and shift regionally during the same time period, assuming current migration trends within the country continue.
Total exposure to extreme heat was calculated in “person-days” by multiplying the number of days when the temperature is expected to hit at least 95 degrees by the number of people who are projected to live in the areas where extreme heat is occurring.
The results are that the average annual exposure to extreme heat in the United States during the study period is expected to be between 10 and 14 billion person-days, compared to an annual average of 2.3 billion person-days between 1971 and 2000.
Of that increase, roughly a third is due solely to the warming climate (the increase in exposure to extreme heat that would be expected even if the population remained unchanged). Another third is due solely to population change (the increase in exposure that would be expected if climate remained unchanged but the population continued to grow and people continued to moved to warmer places). The final third is due to the interaction between the two (the increase in exposure expected because the population is growing fastest in places that are also getting hotter).
“We asked, ‘Where are the people moving? Where are the climate hot spots? How do those two things interact?'” said NCAR scientist Linda Mearns, also a study co-author. “When we looked at the country as a whole, we found that each factor had relatively equal effect.”
At a regional scale, the picture is different. In some areas of the country, climate change packs a bigger punch than population growth and vice versa.
For example, in the U.S. Mountain region–defined by the Census Bureau as the area stretching from Montana and Idaho south to Arizona and New Mexico–the impact of a growing population significantly outstrips the impact of a warming climate. But the opposite is true in the South Atlantic region, which encompasses the area from West Virginia and Maryland south through Florida.
Exposure vs. vulnerability
Regardless of the relative role that population or climate plays, some increase in total exposure to extreme heat is expected in every region of the continental United States. Even so, the study authors caution that exposure is not necessarily the same thing as vulnerability.
“Our study does not say how vulnerable or not people might be in the future,” O’Neill said. “We show that heat exposure will go up, but we don’t know how many of the people exposed will or won’t have air conditioners or easy access to public health centers, for example.”
The authors also hope the study will inspire other researchers to more frequently incorporate social factors, such as population change, into studies of climate change impacts.
“There has been so much written regarding the potential impacts of climate change, particularly as they relate to physical climate extremes,” said Bryan Jones, a postdoctoral researcher at the CUNY Institute for Demographic Research and lead author of the study. “However, it is how people experience these extremes that will ultimately shape the broader public perception of climate change.”
###
About the article
Title: Future population exposure to U.S. heat extremes
Authors: Bryan Jones, Brian C. O’Neill, Larry McDaniel, Seth McGinnis, Linda O. Mearns, and Claudia Tebaldi
Publication: Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/nclimate2631
Actual data doesn’t seem to support the claim of increasing high temperatures
Above, “Heat Wave Index” (yellow line) from the US COOP Network and CO2 level (red line, right scale). Orange line is the linear trend for the entire period., Data source: NOAA. Graphed by Willis Eschenbach
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Every time I see that something “could possibly” happen or “might” happen, I check for my wallet. The same claim could just as accurately be made using the words “could possibly not happen” or “might not” happen.
More like Probably not happen and will not happen.
Here is a scary Twilight Zone. The Earth is heating up, then (spoiler alert) ……
Its a dream and its actually going into a deep freeze. Globalclimatewierdwarmingdisruption.
Well by mid century, USA population will likely double anyway; just from illegal immigration, so I guess that means that the Temperature (anomaly) only has to double by that time, to quadruple the exposure.
We only deal in anomalies in climate catastrophys; isn’t that true ??
The final third is due to the interaction between the two (the increase in exposure expected because the population is growing fastest in places that are also getting hotter).
And there was me thinking that climate change refugees would want to head somewhere cooler. That being said, after a decidedly cool spring, we could do with some extra heat.
Good news for the city of Detroit … being re-populated by folks escaping the heat. Oh joy, oh rapture.
So…. California was not at the top of the list ? Because they are always so cool ?
……(:>))
The US Census Bureau reports
More people are moving from New York to Florida than from Florida to Georgia. (53,000 to 43,000 in 2009)
Even more are bailing out of Climate Change California to Texas, Arizona and Washington (~115,000).
Don’t tell me Californians are moving to Arizona, we certain don’t need to Californated, it never ceases to amaze me how someone voting habits screws up a state so he/she of it continue to vote for the same stupidity in their adopted state.
This article illustrates nicely our populations response to global warming, it is moving to warmer climates.
Who cares what the actual data says? It’s what their precious, all-knowing, all-seeing models say that counts.
Mind numbing stuff.
From the highly scientific phrase ‘deadly heat waves’ to the assumption that people will continue to migrate to where such ‘deadly heat waves’ are most prolific, it is garbage from top to bottom.
I think all of us have been exposed to quite a bit of hot air for over a 20 years now. I won’t disagree with this article.
Tampa??? What if everyone moved to the Empty Quarter and Sinai peninsula? Now that’s a warming model.
First, The historical trend has nothing to do with projections. The better criticism of this paper would focus on the faulty definition they used for heat waves. A while back, using the same models, a couple of us at BE
had a look at the number of heat waves you would see GIVEN an increase in temperature.
The first step is to use the right definition of a heat wave. we used one that is actually in use as a warning system today in about 40 cities around the world. Each city has its own set of important paramaters. Each had its own “death rate” based on past weather. The definition they use really is inadequate. Its not just temperature. Its temperature, humidity, duration of the extreme, and time of year. 100 degree day early in the year is more deadly than one later in the year.
The next step is to see which of the NARCAP models does the best hindcast using that heat wave “detector”. In this step you downselect to the best model. Even then you have to “bias” adjust the hindcast
because none of the NARCAP models I looked at hindcasted very well.
Then you can get an “idea” about what the future may hold. Not surprising if you take a warmer world as a GIVEN ( as they do), then you will find increased death.
The exact number is impossible to pin down. But the exact number really isnt important. What you hope to do with this kind of study is align priorities with possibilities and direct adaptation planning accordingly.
This is almost certainly untrue.unless you are envisaging a world with wild temperature fluctuations. Deaths from cold always outnumber deaths from warmth. The number of deaths saved in warmer (children won’t know what snow is) winters would far exceed any small increase due to warmth. Humans did not evolve in the poles or temperate regions they evolved in equatorial regions. Overall a warmer climate is more benign.
Well the death rate will double by then anyway just from population increase. People still do die, despite Obama’s efforts to stamp out dying.
A warmer world does not necessarily translate to increased death. My solution to a warmer world is cheaper, reliable, and more abundant energy to run more air conditioning. Cheaper, reliable, more abundant energy such as that provided by nuclear reactors, natural gas, oil and coal. Instead of wasting money on solar and windmills, spend it on improving coal combustion, oil and natural gas production, and lessening the cost of nuclear reactors.
“Not surprising if you take a warmer world as a GIVEN ( as they do), then you will find increased death.”
I’m sure since people retire and move closer to the equator they are more likely to be there when they die.
There is much to agree with in your response. A 95 degree day in Atlanta is a totally different thing than a 95 degree day in New Orleans. And if someone has moved from Chicago to Atlanta it was likely to follow employment which means that it will be possible to sleep in air-conditioned comfort.
The study provides no useful information because it takes flawed data and processes it with an obviously flawed methodology.
Steve Mosher says: “First, The historical trend has nothing to do with projections.”
“…Each had its own “death rate” based on past weather….”
=======
Steve don’t historical and past mean the same thing. So you could not use past weather to do your projections of number of heat waves?
Things were even worse before AC. No-one had AC in the thirties which were the hottest part of the last century (before NASA adjusted the temperatures down).
We adapted already, no need for further adaptation, the solution was implemented in 1933:
… the first private home to have air conditioning was built in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1933. …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_conditioning
no, no , no… You see, due to AGW Mitigation requirements, they are predicting more folks won’t afford AC and so “exposure” will be higher… /sarc:
Or maybe just that we will all be older and retiring somewhere warm….
The “assumption” that this kind of study can be predictive enough to even think about adaptation is basic “scientific arrogance.” And, I personally hope that for all of “the warmist’s” who are wrong, history will write a scathing rebuttal. But I fear a large number of good scientists will be caught in the “reversing of respect” that will ensue.
The clamor of warmist’s claiming “our work is important.” Is really getting to most of us!
There is an even simpler explanation for why these projections are junk science:
“Extreme” properly defined is relative to a mean. Increasing a mean does not necessarily increase variance, and the projections in any case are not to increase temperature variation by large amounts.
There is by definition NOT going to be an increase in 3-sigma heat events (ie events that happen 0.03% of the time). Thus, ‘increase in extremes’ is not factually possible.
The real reason ‘extreme heat’ kills people is because it is extreme – out of the ordinary and thus systems are not set up to handle such an event. Extreme heat kills the old and the sick because their bodies are not used to it and they dont have systems, like AC, to mitigate the 3 sigma events for which people are not able to adjust. That is why a heat wave in Paris in 2003 killed thousands while the SAME TEMPERATURE in Dallas, Texas (100F) is an average summer day that kills nobody. The elderly in Paris dont have the AC and other systems and adaptations that Dallas has and needs and uses on a daily basis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave
But what you see instead of properly defining extreme in terms of ‘how likely’ is a REDEFINITION of “extreme” to be “over 95 degrees” – an absolute. The Dallas/Paris dichotomy shows this is flawed. Are heat deaths greater in Atlanta than Chicago? Not by as much as the temperature is warmer. The populace adapts. In the unlikely event that Paris gradually became Dallas temperature-wise over 50 years, they too would “adapt”.
The US Govt report put out this year on this was particularly egregious, in that they made projections that deliberately did NOT account for adaptation AND they incorrectly redefined ‘extreme’ as above an absolute number. This double heaping of junk science to sex up mortality rates is like estimating 100% mortality from a fire at a school by assuming nobody would choose to adapt and exit the building; you get scary, meaningless bogus projections.
“….There’s a choice we’re now facing,
While our opinions are free,
Political pseudo-science,
Or real science honesty?
If we follow this new religion
It comes at a terrible cost,
The integrity of real science
Could forever be lost!”
Read more: http://wp.me/p3KQlH-JJ
Unless an unbiased system of funding scientific research and a requirement of transparency is established, I don’t see an end to this I’m the near future. Medical science is just as bad.
Yes, the integrity of real science
Is certainly in peril,
From folks without knowledge,
Making the landscape more feral.
For info on the latest papers,
The blogs provide the gist.
So that any ol’ web surfer,
Can also claim to be a Scientist.
Extreme heat kills more people in the United States than any other weather-related event,….
How do they get away with flat out lying like this?
Twice as many people die from cold than heat.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr076.pdf
Interesting observation which I also spotted. Looking at the original published paper there is a supporting additional info pdf data file, which contains precisely zero/zilch/nada mortality information to support their assertion. My conclusion would therefore be that this paper is a pile of poo in search of a toilet.
With one simple link to a Government page, you have done more research than the authors of this paper.
Yes, and all of the various hysteria about warmth and heat has been repeatedly rebutted, but it is a meme that refuses to die, obviously because it is one of the shakiest underpinnings of the entire CAGW edifice, but also because there are several generations of people now who live in air-conditioned comfort 24/7, or as close to that as they can manage, and for whom, apparently, heat is some kind of demon to be avoided at all costs.
I mean, who wants to watch TV when they’re feeling all hot & sticky, and just want to chill out?
Maybe he likes the chart that NOAA has better? You have to compile your own charts with the “facts” how you like them before you write papers about it. (Oh…and you have to give “heat” as only one big category and then separate cold and winter and winds from each other so they are smaller totals than the heat category)
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats.shtml
Well extreme cold means less than -94 deg. C, but extreme heat is only more than +60 deg. C, so I guess that means more people die at below -94 deg. C than die at above + 60 deg. C
You beat me to it, was just going to post the CDC data.
Weather related death numbers 2006 to 2010
Heat 31%
Cold 63%
Other 6%
Also, its not the heat that kills, that’s the result of heat stroke which is preventable. Otherwise the human race would have died out years ago. Heat stroke can and does occur in humans over a wide range of temperatures.
The paper (to summarise) says on P7 “Based on information from death certificates … Nearly one-third of the deaths were attributed to excessive natural heat, and almost two-thirds were attributed to excessive natural cold. “
Interesting that the annual heat wave index also shows a small bump up in CO2 with the record heat of the 1930s. This period must have been a global heating event that resulted in some evolution of CO2 from sea water and fresh water. Wow, some proof that the 30s warmth was a global phenomenon. It is supported by Greenlandic and other nordic thermometers and SH (?)
Holy galloping codswallop…
Hold everything! You mean people are actually moving to warmer climate locations. Who would have thought? The only problem with the warmer climate is people actually enjoy the nice weather.
Like I moved to Arizona in time to avoid the May snow North Dakota now gets, when I was young 1950-60s we never got measurable snow in May, now it seems to occur almost every year.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda science
The best way to mitigate the health effects of heat waves is air-conditioning. That requires higher uses of electricity. Making electricity more expensive will lead to more deaths related to heat waves as the poor are unable to pay their electric bills. For those who have to be outside, they should know how to avoid the effects of extreme heat.
What’s the best way to eliminate air conditioning? They’re working on it.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/05/18/governments-giving-fossil-fuel-companies-10-million-minute-imf
I love the way they assume that the worst case assumptions of the CAGW crowd are true, but at the same time they completely ignore all of the well known positive externalities of CO2 when calculating the “true cost” of oil.
They also assume that any tax rate less than 100% is a subsidy.
There’s an easy test for the assertion in that bizarre article which is packed full of l1es.
If all fossil fuel companies stopped their activities immediately would governments be $10M/min better off? The answer is ‘no’ for two reasons – the first is that they don’t give fossil fuel companies this money, it is the assumed ‘damage to the environment’ and hence is not money or a subsidy at all and the second is that they would have been killed by the millions of people they deprived of fossil fuel energy.
will it be as bad as 1936-
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/166573300?searchTerm=heat%20wave%20in%20the%20US&searchLimits=
Eventually, yes. And then it will cool down. maybe
Especially if they have their way and press everyone into wind blocking heat trapping skyscraper cities. Imagine New York city environs in some humid hot area of the south.
Atlanta would be a start…
If more and more people are deliberately moving to the hottest parts of the country, then maybe, just maybe, heat is not that big of a problem?
I will take 105 over -anything anytime. Oh by the way I have been out in -50, and that was without wind chill. Westren North Dakota in the 1980s, Most of my life -20s -30s and -40s lots. Live in Arizona now and happy waiting for the +100s to show up. Those temps hurt a lot less than any below zero weather. You might burn your tongue if you place it on a hot pipe but it becomes attached to a very cold one after that the frost bite will set in.
or 1901-
“and two hundred and fifty
horses have died in the streets though
hosed by fireman when passing”
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/19095021?searchTerm=heat%20wave%20in%20the%20US%20thousands%20died&searchLimits=
Dear Mr. Watts,
You, sir, are a Grade A wordsmith.
When I saw the phrase, “…the Department of “ignored data in favor of modeled simulations” comes this claim from Trenberth’s mountain climate alarm lair…” I confess that I immediately turned my attention to discovering who was the author of such delightfully crafted English.
Bravo, sir. Bravo!!
A heat wave that hits 90F in NYC will kill dozens.
On the other hand day in and day out, temperatures hit 110F in places like Pheonix and Tucson, and they just consider it a normal summer.
It’s not heat that kills, it’s sudden jumps to levels that the city isn’t prepared for that kill. IE, it’s the sudden increase, not the day to day temperature that matters.
“It’s not heat that kills, it’s sudden jumps to levels that the city isn’t prepared for that kills”
Yes, I made the same point up-thread using the Dallas/Paris comparison. A heat wave killed thousands when Paris was subjected to temps that are an average summer day in Dallas (100F). Its not the absolute temperature, its the extreme relative to what people are able to handle.
patmcguinness: “Yes, I made the same point up-thread using the Dallas/Paris comparison. A heat wave killed thousands when Paris was subjected to temps that are an average summer day in Dallas (100F). “
It wasn’t quite as simple as that though. was it?
Had the event not occurred during a public holiday when most of the support services were non-functional, there would have been nothing exceptional about the death toll.
The claim that more people are killed by heat than cold runs counter to everything I have read in the past.
It also runs counter to the first-hand experience of those who’ve experienced both extreme cold and extreme heat, such as yours truly, whose lifetime temperature exposure spans c145°F. I’ve ridden my bicycle in the hottest conditions, but feared for my life when it was 25 below.
maybe this was the worst-
WORLD-WIDE DROUGHT.
ACCORDING to current cable news
a drought over tho greater part
of the world is causing very grave dis ?
tress in many of the countries-
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/173319300?searchTerm=world%20wide%20heat%20wave&searchLimits=
We should just give in. What’s it going to take to keep you “climate scientists” from starving a billion people? We’ll pay it. Just give us time to collect your money, but please no more senseless killing. You got us.