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
Come on guys, don’t pick on ’em too hard. They’re just trying to justify their funding.
Again AGW theory enthusiast do not use the data if it opposes their theory.
The fact is CO2 is increasing but the global temperatures are not increasing.
Once the climate trend reverses(a global temperature decline) the lessening of water vapor in the lower levels of the atmospheric due to less evaporation from cooler sea surface temperatures while the atmospheric dynamics should at least maintain the levels of water vapor in the upper atmosphere due to precipitation staying at the same levels or maybe increasing, will limit and keep water vapor from increasing in the upper atmosphere. This should then result in a weakening GHG effect even if CO2 levels stay steady or increase some.
Will CO2 levels run counter to future temperature trends? So far it has not ,time will tell.
The positive feedback (hot spot) between CO2 and water vapor is not present in addition to increasing amounts of CO2 having a lesser and lesser impact upon temperatures due to the saturation factor.
This is the flaw in AGW theory and why it is not going to be correct.
Well with all the densepack they are shoehorning in around here under the auspices of “Transit Oriented Development’ it will be a double whammy. UHI will get worse, and, more people will get to experience it.
“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.”
Any fool can google and instantly find reality.
Cold kills more than heat, CDC says; other researchers …
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/cold-kills-more-than-...
The Washington Post
Aug 4, 2014 – A new report from CDC says cold killed more people than any other … deaths from U.S. weather events between 2006 and 2010 finds cold …
Extreme cold kills more people than leukemia, homicide and …
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/extreme-cold-kills-mo...
The Washington Post
Jan 7, 2014 – The number of annual deaths attributable to cold temperature is 27940 or 1.3% of total deaths in the US.
Killer cold: Winter is deadlier than summer in U.S.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/…cold-heat/13323173/
USA Today
Jul 30, 2014 – Winter cold kills more than twice as many Americans as does summer heat, according to a report released today by the National Center for …
Which is responsible for more US deaths — Excessive Heat …
wattsupwiththat.com/…/which-is-responsible-for-m…
Watts Up With That?
Jun 2, 2014 – “U.S. Death Rates due to Extreme Heat and Cold Ascribed to Weather, 1979-1997.” Technology 7S: … It is quite obvious that cold in the US not heat kills more people. peter says: ….. Cold will kill more people than heat. Period.
Steve, looking at it from a pure statistics angle……it’s not much…..about 500 people die each year from heat….and about 1000 die each year from cold
So just DOUBLE the death rate.
“and a population that’s growing especially fast in the hottest regions of the country, according to new research.”
Big Science. Because without it, I wouldn’t be able to figure out that I would be exposing myself to extreme heat by moving from Minnesota to the topics in a few years, when I retire.
Good Grief the stupid is bleeding with this one.
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).
Doesn’t the population growth suggest people prefer to live where it’s warm? And if it gets too warm for a few days, heck, that’s what swamp coolers, fans, and air conditioners are for—so long as there’s cheap power and potable water, heat is no problem.
Max, please, please, pretty please with icing on top….would you, could you, won’t you remake that chart listing the punishments meted out to the sinful climate debate folk? You know…like the 8th circle could be “IPCC staff-Wrapped in Individual columns of flame” (instead of false counselors) and Micky Mann would be under “falsifiers” etc. Or perhaps you could mete out justice for all of us “lost” and unsaved skeptics….
Come on…you know you want to! 🙂
Aphan, thanks for the implicit compliment 🙂
I must say, your idea is a fine one … hmmmm …
2nd the motion 🙂
I would never betray my benefactors (Judecca – bottom right).
Are you accepting reservations in Second and Third Circles for climastrolgists?
The Tenth Circle of Hell is reserved for cartoonists.
Punishment: Being forced to listen to NPR for one hour per week, for, like, three weeks.
“High-resolution simulation,” as if. 95 degrees is an every-day, all-spring summer and fall-thing throughout much of America. They do not collapse on the street in Orlando or Houston or Tucson or Pascagoula from this, they just fan themselves and get back in the air conditioning. The language of fear, and our excellent Main Stream Media publishes every word.
Yuck.
It’s beach weather to me. Can’t go into the water unless it’s 80F.
when the temperature is expected to hit at least 95 degrees….
You mean like it does almost every where in the summer? These morons are in Boulder, no clue at all…….
http://marinas.com/assets/1315/Visit.png
they’re smoking the good stuff
Boulder has a severe climate, but not too many 90° days when I was there, and I never ran my air. Sometimes severe afternoon thunderstorms were a regular feature during the summer months, however, these suddenly jetting out into the crystal mornings from over the nearby Flatirons around lunchtime, and soon engulfing the entire Front Range with showers and storms, some bringing hail and tornadoes.
Many of the residents like to play in the snow, and Boulder has one of the best bicycle infrastructures anywhere – truly awesome off-road “multi-use” paths, which are indeed a little too multi near town.
Boulder is home to NCAR, NOAA, NIST, NSIDC, INSTARR among others, who may have a vested interest in promotion of the various hysterical alarms being sounded by some parts of the scientific community, but the local rag Daily Camera often has spirited debates over CAGW and such on the Letters to the Editor page, so it’s certainly not any one-note samba playing in the People’s Republic of Boulder.
“We asked, ‘Where are the people moving? Where are the climate hot spots? How do those two things interact?’” said an NCAR scientist.
“While we laid the Tarot cards out on the table we employed a unique form of seance. Normally, one uses a seance to communicate with dead people,” said the NCAR scientist, “but in this case we actually communicated with not yet born, nor conceived, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of grandparents, many of whom have also not yet been born, nor married or hooked up. That’s what makes this research so cutting edge,” gushed the young, impressionable NCAR research fund grantee who was wearing an eery ‘Obama in 2016’ pin. “From our communications with these not yet born, nor conceived, grandchildren and great grandchildren we were able to determine their future career paths, mate selection patterns, and from this and other information (which is unavailable due to personal intellectual property rights) we were able to computer model where these not yet born, nor conceived, grandchildren and great grandchildren would choose to make their homes in the distant future” the scientist said. The exuberant NCAR scientist was adamant, “Yes, honest, we can actually do this. We can, I tell you. We can. It is actually easier, and more reliable than modeling the global temperature, and its regional impacts, 100 years into the future. You see, you can’t conduct seances with the temperature spirit.” The NCAR scientist, who goes by the name of Linda Lollypop, then explained how; by fitting the information on the areas where these not yet born, nor conceived, grandchildren and great grandchildren will call their homes; together with the distant future regional weather forecasts for those areas; they can then determine the number of heat related deaths. Doctor Lollypop then excitedly claimed that they actually had a way of actually backing up this research, “You see, we’re going to do something so extraordinarily cutting edge that it’s not only never been done before, it hasn’t even been conceived (did I say that word again?). What we’re going to do to verify our research is we’re actually going to conduct seances with these not yet born, nor conceived, grandchildren and great grandchildren after … they’ve …died. How’s that for cool?” gushed Lollypop. “That way we’ll be able to genuinely verify our research that they died from heat related deaths.”
Don’t allow yourselves to be fooled by … reality! /sarc
Seems silly to be moving to Tampa and Houston, wont they be under several meters of water by then?
Good one.
Maybe they’ll turn the streets into canals, like Venice.
Authors: Bryan Jones, Brian C. O’Neill, Larry McDaniel, Seth McGinnis, Linda O. Mearns, and Claudia Tebaldi
Question to the authors: Have any of you ever made a forecast that could be verified in real time where something like being right means you get paid? If you did, you would understand how absurd your projections are, given the real world data that is so devastatingly pointed out here. You come to a conclusion that is charitably..doubtful and most likely laughable, in real world terms
Joe, they are not in the real world. I like Bubba Cow’s explanation – they are smoking the good stuff.
good point jayhd , they are in Colorado.
What has Trenberth got to do with such nonsense?
The study came from NCAR….”Trenberth’s mountain climate alarm lair”. Trenberth is one of the “Senior Scientists” there.
He has nothing to do with the study, though. Just an attempt to smear his name.
Kevin Trenberth is a ‘notable’ scientist there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Atmospheric_Research
He used to be ‘noted’ under the heading of ‘Funding and management’. I deleted the entry on the grounds that his ‘notability’ had nothing to do with the funding or management of NCAR. My edit was reverted a week later. I see now they have re-arranged the text and there is a heading for ‘Staffing areas and notable past and present scientists’ – in which he is included.
The lefties are schizophrenics, hypocrites, liars and fools.
On one hand they worry about the heat killing people. While at the same time working to cause the price of energy for AC to soar.
As if their war against the CO2 boogeyman can address the heat better than cheap energy and AC?
Hey lefty, shut your pie hole.
Deaths, during a heat wave are almost entirely preventable with proper hydration. The most susceptible individuals are elderly, who tend to be in a constant state of dehydration. In the area where I live we have 16 trained and certified volunteer EMTs. Our standard kit contains IV saline, each of us also keeps a pack of cold compresses at hand. With the substantial distances where I live a volunteer is often the first responder at any scene, with the pros arriving anywhere from 8 to 15 minutes later. Over the past few years we’ve had several dozen calls that were due to heat related issues. In 100% of those cases ice packs and/or saline provided immediate and profound relief, to the point that by the time they reached an ER the subject’s vital metrics were within normal parameters, and the ER physician told them to go home, take it easy, and drink water.
As the population gets older and we have more and more people who seem to be ignorant of basic health and safety issues I suspect heat related deaths will be on the rise no matter what happens to the climate
Exactly! In the National Health Statistics under “heat” related deaths it states-
“Exposure to excessive natural heat, heat stroke, sun stroke or all were cited as either the underlying cause or a contributing cause of death.” I’m guessing that if you take the heat/sun stroke deaths out of the “heat related deaths” group and just try to pin down how many could ONLY be due to “excessive natural heat”…you’d have no statistic to report at all.
A person can get heat stroke, or sun stroke WITHOUT “excessive natural heat” taking place…it does not have to be 95+ for it to happen. Heat/sun stroke happens all the time in temperatures lower than that due to simple over exposure or over exertion without increasing fluid intake. Both cause the body to be unable to regulate and cool it’s core temperature. Its a body overheat problem, not a globe overheat issue.
Whenever a warmist brings up the deaths in France during the heatwave a few years ago, I always remind them that, unfortunately, heat waves tend to occur when most of France, including its state-run hospitals, is on vacation.
I predict a new spin for the “Pure Michigan” ad campaigns. 🙂
Take a look here, we’ll take any heat we can get
http://www.coastwatch.msu.edu/michigan/m1.html
Wow, Green Bay is almost balmy compared to the big lake…
Actually, he’s correct….he’s just deceptive. Temperatures ARE increasing in the cities, but ONLY in the cities. And that isn’t due to climate change, it’s the urban heat island. Get out of the city and there isn’t any change.
My Sister lives in Ontario and gets frost bite walking to her post box, she cant wait for the next heath wave!
Do you use a heath bar to recover from a heath wave?
Yes, you crush one up and sprinkle it into ice cream….mmmmmmmmmmmmmm heath wave…..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/07/extreme-cold-kills-more-people-than-leukemia-homicide-and-liver-disease/
I’m just sure that after the AGW scientists save the world from it’s own climate, their pure, genuine, and obviously DEEP concern about preventing human deaths will drive them to immediately focus their skills on curing cancer, murders, and liver disease….and any number of other causes of death that kill millions of people every year. Uh huh. I’m positive. Yep. Gonna happen.
Now here’s a good use for our statist government. First round up all of those confused people who inadvertently moved south, put them on the new Climate Train heading north, force them into factories to build air conditioners, and the rest of us down south here can try to hang on through one more normal 6-month summer.
And we would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been you people and your ability to produce graphs based on actual data.
Just as with the primary preoccupation of the worried hoards of Blighty – where we have been told repeatedly that we face a future rain-o-geddon unless we mightily resist all flood defence and drainage projects and instead invest heavily in off-shore wind projects.
But, apart from the fact that the proposed remedy is clearly ludicrous and counter to reason – the simple rainfall averages speak for themselves. And anyone can look them up and see for themselves.
Inasmuch as – once again the unfabricated and unmanipulated data set plotted as a simple graph reveals that U.K. rain-o-geddon is no more than a figment of the popular imagination:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/uk-winter-precipitation-as-unpredictable-as-ever/
I am so confused. Most of the areas listed are the sowthwest US, and they mention people moving there. But by far, the largest factor in the demographics of that region is immigration. Most of the new arrivals are from Mexico and Central America, so they have moved from hotter areas to relatively cooler areas. So given that the authors consider migration patterns, should they not subtract degree-days to account for the experience of the immigrants, as they have moved to a cooler area?
These authors need to be shown the lesson of the soldier in the foxhole. Instead of publishing furiously, it is best to keep your head down and stay as quiet as possible. For some government agencies, budget-cut time can not come fast enough.
It’s a good observation, but much of Mexico is mountainous and uplands where temperatures may be cooler than So. California and So. Arizona. I wonder too how many of the illegal immigrants who’ve died in transit to the USA are being counted in the mortality stats?
I agree with your points but do note that the graphs are missing recent years, which would include 2012 and the 1 year spike higher.
1 year of severe drought and intense heat is just weather of course, after 24 years with the best overall growing conditions in the US Cornbelt since the previous severe, widespread drought in that location in 1988.