Usually we are treated to scare stories about sea level rise inundating NYC, this one says its worse than that, by the 21st century, they’ll be like “Okies”. From the CARNEGIE INSTITUTION, and the department of modeled scare-de-jour, comes this claim:
End-of-century Manhattan climate index to resemble Oklahoma City today
Washington, DC– Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions will alter the way that Americans heat and cool their homes. By the end of this century, the number of days each year that heating and air conditioning are used will decrease in the Northern states, as winters get warmer, and increase in Southern states, as summers get hotter, according to a new study from a high school student, Yana Petri, working with Carnegie’s Ken Caldeira. It is published by Scientific Reports.
“Changes in outdoor temperatures have a substantial impact on energy use inside,” Caldeira explained. “So as the climate changes due to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the amount of energy we use to keep our homes comfortable will also change.”
Using results from established climate models, Petri, under Caldeira’s supervision, calculated the changes in the number of days over the last 30 years when U.S. temperatures were low enough to require heating or high enough to require air conditioning in order to achieve a comfort level of 65 degrees Fahrenheit. She also calculated projections for future days when heating or air conditioning would be required to maintain the same comfort level if current trends in greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked.
Looking forward toward the end of this century, her calculations found that Washington state will have the smallest increase in air conditioning-required days and southern Texas will have the largest increase. Likewise, upper North Dakota, Minnesota, and Maine would have the largest decrease in heating-required days and southern Florida would have the smallest decrease.
Petri then took this inquiry one step further and looked at a sum of heating-required days and cooling-required days in different regions both in the past and in future projection, to get a sense of changes in the overall thermal comfort of different areas.
“No previous study has looked at climate model projections and tried to develop an index of overall thermal comfort, which is quite an achievement,” Caldeira said.
Today, the city with the minimum combined number of heating- and cooling-required days, in other words the place with the most-optimal outdoor comfort level, is San Diego. But the model projected that in the same future time frame, 2080-2099, the climate would shift so that San Francisco would take its place as the city with the most-comfortable temperatures.
Other changes predicted by the model are that the amount of heating and cooling required in New York City in the future will be similar to that used in Oklahoma City today. By this same measure, Seattle is projected to resemble present day San Jose, and Denver to become more like Raleigh, NC, is today.
###
The authors used the Climate Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) simulations under the Representation Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5). For CMIP the US Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals.
“….achieve a comfort level of 65 degrees Fahrenheit…” Isn’t that a little cold? I thought 72 F – 22 C was the comfort level???
Yeah, 65F is downright cold if you ask me. Under such conditions I wear a jacket.
That’s the idea. Our ex-president J set the example.
So did Fred Rogers.
I’m sure the numbers can be changed to whatever you want without changing the data…[Archie Bunker voice] You see meathead, da numbers are whats the scientists say – not what you see on the thermometer…
I’d be wearing thermal underwear. My comfort zone is 27C/81F.
Here in Florida you would have to be absolutely downright nuts to cool your house to 65 so that you can wear a jacket around the house.
This is about energy use in the imaginary future when it is much hotter. So I think 65 was chosen so they can say “see much more it is going to cost you in AC in the future.” Here I cool to 77 or so in the day and 74 at night in just my room.
Agreed. Typically, it is recommended that a home be heated to 65F, and cooled to 78F. Wonder if the press release is less than complete, or her work?
And RCP 8.5 – sheesh, we’re all gonna die before then.
I doubt that study was worth the electrical and heat energy used by her supercomputer, which she should offset now by returning to a Neanderthal lifestyle – BEFORE they discovered fire.
And she should cease exhaling now.
She seems to had some consultation from the Air Conditioning industry, so my guess is that it’s the press release’s omission of her top range. If not, she’s in high school, so I’ll give her a pass. It’s not a hard calculation. I could do it with some left over A/C calcs I have laying around the house. If they used a supercomputer for anything other than to find an offset to start off with, they are doing it wrong.
However, I welcome this because of it’s realisitic assumptions and results. In short, New York will look like OKC, San Fransisco will look like San Diego. Dallas will look like Houton, etc etc. It’s extremely anti-alarmist if you give it a moment’s thought. While some (lunatics) prefer NYC’s climate to OKC’s, we can all agree that both are easily livable even without A/C, much less with it.
The study was likely using heating and cooling degree days. If the average temperature for the day is over 65, some people will use some air conditioning, if the average is below 65°F some will use some heating. Note most places that is averaging 65°F the daily high is probably well over 75°F, so the interior of a house or office will be higher than 72°F, and the low below 55°F which might require some heating. Obviously some like it hotter or cooler and some will just open and close windows during the day and night.
Reply to J P. Petersen ==> Quite right — setting the interior temp desired to 65 F vastly inflates the number of degree cooling days.
The US Department of Energy recommends:
[[ source: http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/thermostats ]]
So the high school student based he whole study on a misunderstanding…setting the spring/summer/fall thermostat to 65 instead of the recommended 78., which is a whole 13 degrees higher!
I have judged many High School Science Fairs, and see this kind of mistake often….it is the adult adviser (in this case, Ken Caldeira) who is at fault for letting the student proceed with an error this large in the original study design. Its a shame that the student has worked so hard and produced a worthless result.
I am wondering who will be denounced as a problematic, mean-spirited meanyhead for pointing out this minor issue.
Garbage in, garbage out!
Based on governmental and industry standards, his analysis is spot on. 65F is the proper baseline. Understand, this is the EXTERIOR temperature, not the temperature INSIDE the house. If your HVAC doesn’t include an economizer, you may well find yourself turning on the AC when the exterior temperature is 66F due to heat gain from insolation and interior heat sources (people, electronic equipment, dishwasher, oven, etc).
Heating and cooling degree days are supposed to be based on the average daily temperature compared to 65 F. However my paper in Minneapolis that reports each day both the average temperature and cooling degrees seems to be using a base close to 75 F for cooling which makes more sense.
Incidentally, the EPA has reported in the last 100 years for the entire US that the heating degrees days have been dropping but the cooling degrees have not changed. Must be using real temperatures, not those “adjusted” ones.
It was NOAA and not EPA that were adjusting.
Bombshell: Comprehensive Analysis Reveals NOAA Wrongfully Applying “Master Algorithm” To Whitewash Temperature History – See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2015/06/01/bombshell-comprehensive-analysis-reveals-noaa-wrongfully-applying-master-algorithm-to-whitewash-temperature-history/#sthash.jDwXt4Pt.dpuf
On May 6, 2015, NOAA confirmed in writing that the 151°F of Fudging—the Massive Rewrite of Maine Climate History, [3 ] reported in Black Swan Climate Theory [4] (BSCT) study was no accident. NOAA states the changes were intentional and were justified! NOAA’s written statement included these words [5]: …improvements in the dataset, and brings our value much more in line with what was observed at the time. The new method used stations in neighboring Canada to inform estimates for data-sparse areas within Maine (a great improvement).”
New York City – – – someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the street…
here in rural eastern Virginia in these recent 90-odd degree days we’ve been cooling to 78F. It’s quite comfortable; it isn’t the temperature it’s the humidity that makes one uncomfortable – as any fule kno who’s been to Arizona in summer. Good grief if we cooled to 65F I’d have to crank up the furnace to keep my angina in check.
*sigh*
Using RCP8.5, the Armageddon scenario.
*sigh*
It’s funny how “studies” always seem use the most extreme, and therefore the least likely scenario.
Armageddon scenario? That Northern California will have the climate of Southern California and New York will be like OKC? While it would be horrid if we actually had to move to NYC (I’m with Hank Williams on my opinions about the city), I would hardly call that Armageddon.
If anything, this shows how little the effect even of the worst case scenario is! Even in this absurd overestimation, multiple times what any rational analysis of the data predicts, we still have all of America very much in habitable conditions. Even if Houston feels more like Monterrey, the Mexicans have been living like that for long before there even was a Mexico, so I can too, especially with the benefits of air conditioning.
‘Using results from established climate models…’ – And just which ones would those be?
Yeah. I was just about to post something similar. It was the first thing to catch my eye.
‘Established’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘accurate’ or ‘proven’, I guess. So much confidence, so many papers and headlines and stories and articles, so much FUD based on failed computer models. It’s truly astonishing and very worrisome.
Apparently the models don’t have to be accurate to have ‘established’ authority. Sagan just somersaulted in his grave…
Aw, c’mon now–we’re in the 21st century, where “truth” is whatever anyone says it is!
Didn’t you get the memo? 😉
Dawtgtomis, given the many problems Sagan had with accuracy, why would this upset him?
Exactly my thoughts…they are still doing studies and issuing reports based on something that is not even happening. And, at this point, there has been a longer period of time with no warming than the warming period after that last cooling period.
And at same time CO2 is increasing faster than ever. No. Warming. Is. Happening.
And the cooling period was said to be heralding disaster, which is far more plausible that warming causing disaster. All of my plants grow just fine in hot weather. Except peas. And they die in cold weather, or stop growing. Except peas.
I hate peas!
All models. There is also a “no model left behind” policy.
All of them. They were written years ago, therefore they are established. What they aren’t is properly calibrated or verified.
And not to be terribly cynical about their ‘analysis’, but what happened to sea level rises? Wouldn’t New York more resemble Venice than OK City?
Ooh, good catch, you snagged a big one! Cabbies will have to retrain to be gondoleros!
Yes, that what I thought. Much of New York will be under water in the next few years. Just ask our favorite NASA scientist James Hanson.
these are the same models that said NYC was supposed to be under water by now
Weird.
So do they tell Okies that global warming will make them end up like New York?
Weirdsville, AZ.
Oklahoma will be like Seattle.
During a drought.
And Chicago will be like Seattle too.
During normal weather.
Fort Myers will be like…Fort Myers.
And Oklahoma City is right in Tornado Alley.
Does this mean to imply that NYC will need to install tornado sirens and everyone will need an underground root cellar?
It may not be generally known that downtown Seattle is now 12 to 20 feet higher above sea level than it was 120 years ago. It has nothing to do with rising land, it has to do with filling and covering. Seattle used to be about 4 feet above high tide. When the tide came in the sewers ran backwards!
Large parts of NYC were at sea level 200 years ago. There is simply nothing to be alarmed about.
“So do they tell Okies that global warming will make them end up like New York?”
I live in Oklahoma and saw a map in National Geographic magazine one time that displayed the Earth as it was back during the last era of the dinosaurs, when the Earth’s sea levels were at their highest, and the oceans reached right up through the center of the United States to the Canadian border, and I noted with pleasure that if all the Earth’s ice were to melt today, it looks like the part of Oklahoma I live in would be right near the shore of the new ocean (the dry side). I’m in the Eastern part of the state where the elevation is high enough that I ought to stay high and dry even if the icecaps do melt. I’ll have some new beachfront property.
BTW, you really don’t want to live in Oklahoma without airconditioning. I have actually done that when I was a young child, and it was not too bad most of the time, but some summers were really bad, even for a healthy kid. I can imagine what it was like for older people. We did have a water cooler sometimes, but that’s not much good once it gets over 100 degrees F.
TA
Is this from the JV team?
I’m afraid when this kid has a kid in high school, he’ll be helping the kid research the increase in heating degree days at lower latitudes since the solar grand minimum began it’s influence. That model will show New York becoming like Reykjavik…
“Is this from the JV team?”
Oh, it is ON now!
Heads are gonna roll!
This is indulgence. But it is a good example of a student using common sense (unfortunately, in this case, supported by a terrible model) to do a basic statistical study, and would come to reasonable conclusions were the “model-set” reasonable. If one did it using, say, the Lewis/Curry15 model, the results no doubt would be reasonable.
My drift is, really, that science isn’t anything a scientist does. It’s science that anyone does. You can be in high school. You can be a major in a (largely) unrelated field. But if science is what you are doing, then you are doing science. And if your work is published in a peer-review journal (i.e., reviewed by the official ‘skins), you are a part of that community.
Anyone can play. And it’s even a better game than politics. Like the Mosh says: “The data is out there. Go get it.”
Do I understand this correct? Since when is wild computer projections considered data.
I apologize if I miss-interpret your post. I also as an engineer, find it difficult to praise an effort that starts off with the wrong technical assumption/basis.
Last I looked, “science” entailed observation, experiment, reproduction of results. Not just grinding assumptions through a machine and excreting “statistics.” Nothing this kid did qualifies as “science.” Neither does anything the IPCC churns out these days, when it completely ignores the mountains of evidence that “greenhouse effect” is a failed hypothesis.
Well, taking a prediction, assuming it’s right, and calculating the effects of the prediction has some value, and is well within the perview and the abilities of a high schooler. Evaluating global circulation models is not.
Given that this is a worst case scenario, it gives us a hard upper limit of what to expect, which is: not much.
Seriously, did y’all read this? This study is a great BOON to our cause. It shows how small and ineffective these changes are. San Fransisco will feel like San Diego! The HORROR! Seriously. Given the “we are all going to die” predictions, this is a breath of fresh air. The same plants and animals live in both cities and both climates. The same people live in both climates. This shows how LITTLE will happen.
We have been saying for YEARS how these temperature changes are so small as to be unimportant, using how they are dwarfed by diurnal and annual swings. This paper, thrown in our lap with full pedigree from the alarmists, shows that even these vast overstimations will merit interesting but clearly non-dangerous changes in temperature.
This can be extensively, if sarcastically, referenced for ages. Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, y’all.
I think I’ll go find a high school student, do an analysis, get it published. This is really too far out there to even try and come up with a witty comment…
I have no degree in science. Yet that is what I do. I do it on a peer-review level. It would not matter if I had no degree at all. It is the work that counts. Even if the results and/or the methods are wrong, they can often be improved (or definitely discarded) through independent review and further study.
I think I’ll go find a high school student, do an analysis, get it published. This is really too far out there to even try and come up with a witty comment…
For that matter, Anthony went directly into a 25-year gig as a meteorologist without finishing school. He discovered the microsite problem and we will publish (again). Him and us boys pushing and pulling. So there’s your example.
One of the advantages for me and mine in climatology is that it is such a vast field and so much ground is left (willfully) untouched. In our case, it was microsite. So there is room for a high-schooler with a Good Idea. Or even a moldy history major, and we do love doing statistical studies using past data.
And the “comfort index” idea is not a bad one, after all. Plug it the right model and your results would likely be good.
Plug it in the wrong model and you get garbage. that is what they did and it scores as an F.
The important job is to get the science right in the first place, the math is just routine unless you are working with a taxpayer grant, then any garbage gets published and accepted by believers.
So much left untouched? What, of the grant money gravy train?
Funny, I grew up in a little town just a few miles from Oklahoma City. And I’ve been to New York City many times.
If these modelers are correct, which is very much in doubt, New Yorkers will find that their climate is much improved as it approaches that of Oklahoma City as it is today. Winters will be much, much milder while summers won’t be that much worse.
The article was a bit cagey on that score: according to their respective NWS sites, NYC (Central Park) averages 4750 heating and 1105 cooling degree days per year, versus 3365 HDD and 2099 CDD for OKC (Will Rogers Airport). It’s even more of an improvement when you take into account that cooling is somewhat cheaper than heating on a degree-day for degree-day basis.
Scientific Reports is one of the Nature group of journals. The journal scope says it publishes, “original research in all areas of the natural and clinical sciences. We believe that if your research is scientifically valid and technically sound then it deserves to be published and made accessible to the research community.”
The IPCC says that climate models are predictively precise only at continental scales and above (pdf download), (a claim disproved by Anagnostopoulos, et al., 2010).
For example from the 2013 IPCC AR5 Chapter 9, “On regional scales (sub-continental and smaller), the confidence in model capability to simulate surface temperature is less than for the larger scales; however, regional biases are near zero on average, with intermodel spread of roughly ±3°C.” Chapter 9 goes on to say that, “biases in cloud simulation lead to regional errors on cloud radiative effect of several tens of watts per square meter.”
Caldeira and Petri used the pessimistic RCP8.5 scenario for their evaluation of future badness, and state that it predicts, “global mean surface temperature is expected to rise by 2.6–4.8 °C by year 2100…” So, on first pass, the projected regional temperature change qualified by its IPCC-canonical uncertainty is (2.4±1.1 C)±3 C. Not different from zero at ±1σ.
Let’s now put this in larger perspective. The RCP8.5 change in forcing, 1750-2100, is 8.5 Watts per square meter. Regional errors due “biases in cloud simulation” amount to “several tens of Watts per square meter.”
Assessments of regional temperature changes are impossible when the assessed perturbation is much smaller than the model error. A regional air temperature projection is physically meaningless. So says the IPCC.
Surely the expert reviewers and editors at Scientific Reports understand that a bit of research is “scientifically valid and technically sound” only when it is properly qualified by its limits of error. The Caldeira and Petri study falls well outside the bounds of even the specious science purported by the IPCC (which the Nature group journals invariably support).
So, it appears, with “high confidence” (an IPCC favorite), that the editors of Scientific Reports violated their own professional ethics in publishing Caldeira and Petri.
On the other hand, we can always depend on Ken Caldeira to beat the alarmism drum. The tragedy here is that this time he has thoroughly abused the trust of a student. Aided and abetted by the editors at Scientific Reports.
Agreed. Exploiting a child to put a cute face on propaganda.
Idiots.
…“No previous study has looked at climate model projections and tried to develop an index of overall thermal comfort, which is quite an achievement,” Caldeira said…
Forget about “thermal comfort.” How uncomfortable must it be for him to have his head up his arse?
You are responsible for a hearty laugh
“How uncomfortable must it be for him to have his head up his arse?”
Ooh, I know!
Hard to breathe, very dark, and an awful backache. And DO NOT forget to shave!
1. “Denver to become more like Raleigh, NC, is today”…. Meaning sea level will rise 5000 feet?
2. If the climate is 5 degrees warmer, New York will be more like some place that’s now 5 degrees warmer? How much did we pay these guys to figure that one out?
3. Are more people moving from New York to Raleigh, or some warmer place, than vice-versa? Would not most New Yorkers prefer, and be better off, with a warmer climate? Their “voting with their feet” would make it seem so.
4. What a travesty that we’re funding a multi-billion $$$ climate industry to do these virtual and meaningless climate studies based on CMIP5 and other fantasies. Would not the money be better spent on a Medicare beer benefit for seniors?
Free beer for seniors? count me in!
Superb work by the author, more modelling analysis so garbage in garbage out. But she is cluey enough to know where her next pay cheque is coming from.
“The authors used the Climate Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) simulations under the Representation Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5). ”
RCP8.5 strikes again! It’s the foundation for most of the scary stories. As usual they neglect to mention the assumptions tin RCP8.5 that make it so unlikely. For some reasons why see “Is our certain fate a coal-burning climate apocalypse? No!“
Hmmm, and here I thought the comparison would be with NYC to Venice, with NYC having canals instead of streets. I guess there isn’t much collusion in this climate scientist conspiracy, eh?
The purpose of this study was to estimate energy expenditures required to maintain homes in various regions of the U.S. at a comfortable temperature at the end of this century, assuming that some global warming scenario actually comes to pass. Even if their estimations are correct, and the heating and cooling days in each city change as they calculate, what would the net effect be? More cooling degree days with fewer heating degree days does not sound like a problem – unless electricity rates skyrocket (cooling consumes electricity)
So, if they actually care about increasing human comfort, those who believe in global warming ought to be working to make electricity more affordable instead of promoting expensive “renewable” sources of electricity. Perhaps improving human welfare isn’t actually on their minds?
SR
I suggest that your last sentence ought to read …
“Improving human welfare isn’t actually on their minds”. (There is NO “perhaps” about it).
Excellent post.
Regards,
WL
” By the end of this century, the number of days each year that heating and air conditioning are used will decrease in the Northern states, as winters get warmer, and increase in Southern states, as summers get hotter, according to a new study from a high school student, Yana Petri, working with Carnegie’s Ken Caldeira. It is published by Scientific Reports.”
High school students publishing papers? Sounds like the norm over the past 30 years. The ‘team’ comes to mind.
Yes, the con artists can stoop lower than anyone could possibly have imagined. Betcha Ken Caldeira can publish another Armageddon ‘study’ with an Elementary School student that has been perverted on Global Warming via Common Crap, (er Core).
Dear friend Anthony,
As you probably know, many people were displaced from the states comprising the Southern Central Plains during the disastrous Dust Bowl period of the 1930’s and subsequently migrated to California in search of any sort of work to make ends meet. It was in California that those people were often subjected to the worst sort of exploitation and inhumane treatment and were routinely addressed and referred to by the denigrating term, “Okie”. I know that the term is still commonly used by Californians to describe those people who are deemed to be of lesser social or economic standing, the proof of which is found in any number of movies, where the term is used, or in casual mention to a Californian that one happens to be from Oklahoma, etc.
As there is now a migration out of California to points East, including Oklahoma, it is not unheard of to encounter a Californian, for which the term all too easily rolls from his tongue, but it better not happen twice.
As result of the mistreatment of previously suffering Oklahomans at the hands of Californians, that term is considered by many here in Oklahoma as completely pejorative and the use of which, will immediately earn the user a lesson, often severe, as the people here can and will fight, right quick.
Just so you know… out here, it’s the “O” word, do you get the connection to the “N” word? There is no difference in the the attitudes or purposeful intention of denigration by those who originally coined either of the terms, so just stop using it, please.
“When you call me that, smile!” the Virginian; 1902
The word was different.
If Merle sings it, the O-word is OK.
John F. Hultquist commented : “…..If Merle sings it, the O-word is OK….”
LOL and true!
“Let this song I’m singin’ be a warnin’…
You’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.”– Merle Haggard
———
“I’ve always believed all those people who moved from Oklahoma to
California raised the average IQ of two states.”- attributed to: Will Rogers
http://www.quotemeonit.com/rogersw.html
The illustrious Mr. Haggard wrote his famous “Okie From Muskogee” during the tenure of Oklahoma Governor Dewey F. Bartlett, who tried, among other things, to erase any stigma of denigration which had become attached to the word “Okie” by having a publicized campaign replete with lapel pins called “Okie Pins”, signifying that one was proud to be an Oklahoman, regardless of an negative connotation of the short nickname, as it had been applied by Californians.
While many people don’t know the history, or could care less, one should be aware that usage of the term face- to- face to an Oklahoman who is fully aware of the historical and contemporary derogatory usage (especially by Californians,) is highly likely to result in a swift and adverse reaction.
I thought NYC was going to be underwater? That’s nothing like Oklahoma City.
I think the author missed her calling.
If present trends continue New York will most closely resemble Detroit not Oklahoma City.
+10
How many people read this drivel and believe it? I would like to believe that most people understand that politics are controlling the media coverage and that the stories….are well…just stories and we’re not on an apocalyptic journey to doom because of CO2. Obviously there are some that want to believe it. I also think there are many who don’t believe CAGW but wouldn’t say so for fear of being ostracized. The alarmists are trying to outdo religion for shaming but they’re dreaming if they think they are in the same class. My apologies if I offend any believers with my frankness.
In the grand scheme of things, the W/m2 of downwelling infrared radiation caused by water vapor is by far the most significant source of this tiny additional heat into the oceans outside of solar insolation. The second greatest source would be that caused by nature sourced CO2. Then we have natural methane, and finally we get to the tiny fraction of 1% of the total ppm of greenhouse gases (water vapor and all the rest) caused by anthropogenic CO2 and anthropogenic methane.
And this will cause us to use our air conditioning more because this tiny little amount of CO2 will create different evil weather around the globe how? I think these people must have been inspired by the 1998 release of The Avengers.
Idiots.