Opinion by Kip Hansen — 5 July 2024
In a recent essay, Hot Facts about Heat, I said:
“I have been communicating with the Climate Indicators team at EPA about this: they up-dated the Heat-Related, but not the Cold-Related, Deaths page. And yes, golly, it does suspiciously look like they have managed to change down-trending data into up-trending data. Not jumping to conclusions yet. I’ll let readers know when I have sorted it out with EPA.”
I wrote a pleasant inquiry to the Climate Indicators Team at the EPA: (excerpt):
“I am a Science Research Journalist and appreciate your reply. However, …we are counting on your team to keep these indicators up to date for all of us — the Cold Deaths data is now eight years out of date, or, being charitable, six years allowing for the two-year lag at CDC.
If you are familiar with the data on the two pages, Heat and Cold deaths, you will realize that the official statement made on the Heat Deaths page is in error. It states “Heat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States” — which your data on the Heat and Cold Deaths directly refutes. Cold is shown as have a death rate per million at 5.5 to 6 (even back in 2016) while even the updated Heat Deaths does not even reach 5 per million.
Given this, it appears that EPA is intentionally or negligently obfuscating the data to support a false claim.
I would appreciate a more thorough answer before I go to press.”
[ The Climate Indicators pages under discussion are Heat-related Deaths and Cold-related Deaths ]
Despite this being near-enough to the long 4th of July weekend (U.S. Independence Day), I received the following answer:
“Your inquiry was shared with me. Please see our response below, on background.
Yesterday, EPA released its updated Fifth Edition of its Climate Change Indicators report. As you saw, numerous indicators have been updated on EPA’s website in anticipation of this release. EPA prioritized updating those indicators featured in the report, but we remain committed to keeping all our indicators updated. We plan on updating Cold-Related Deaths in our next set of rolling updates on the web.
The statement that heat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States is based on an analysis conducted by the National Weather Service. EPA provides this information in the “Background” section as context for the discussion of heat. EPA does not use its indicator data as a basis for that contextualizing statement. We will further clarify this on EPA’s website. We recommend that you follow up with the National Weather Service (NWS) if you have additional questions about their data or finding.
Thank you again for your interest in EPA’s climate change indicators.
Respectfully, Shayla R. Powell — Office of Media Relations and Risk Communications — Office of Public Affairs
[ The 5th Edition of EPA’s Climate Change Indicators report , just released, is available as a free .pdf download here. I will look at that in detail another time. ]
It turns out that, just like the main stream media and all of the Climate Crisis Propaganda outlets, EPA uses the “analysis conducted by the National Weather Service”. EPA has its own data collected from the CDC (via records of actual death certificates) but doesn’t use it in “contextualizing” the statement that “Heat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States”.
Let me be a little clearer on that: EPA has its own data on Heat and Cold Related Deaths – these two statistics are official “Climate Indicators”. The official Climate Indicators maintained by the EPA, with annual rates for deaths classified as “cold-related” by medical professionals in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, show that COLD is the leading weather related killer, with Cold-related Death Rate exceeding that of the Heat-related Death rate.
But they defer to the [known to be wonky] National Weather Service little graphic of “Weather Fatalities” [pretending that it is an “analysis” of some sort – when it isn’t even a serious count of any kind.] And when challenged on this point, their response is: “Take it up with the NWS!”
EPA does promise that because “EPA does not use its indicator data as a basis for that contextualizing statement. We will further clarify this on EPA’s website.” I will be holding my breath to see the updated Cold-related Deaths data and what the clarification will say.
So, where does the National Weather Service [NWS] get the data for their “analysis”? It is possible to find out, but “It ain’t easy”!
“Storm Data is an official publication of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which documents the occurrence of storms and other significant weather phenomena having sufficient intensity to cause loss of life, injuries, significant property damage, and/or disruption to commerce.”
This is not an easy topic…but the simple fact is that Cold-related Deaths will not be counted unless they have been entered into the Storm Events Database by a “Storm Data preparer”.
“Some information appearing in Storm Data may be provided by or gathered from sources outside the National Weather Service (NWS), such as the media, law enforcement and/or other government agencies, emergency managers, private companies, individuals, etc. An effort is made to use the best available information, but because of time and resource constraints, information from these sources may be unverified by the NWS. Accordingly, the NWS does not guarantee the accuracy or validity of the information.”
The NWS does not directly collect deaths data, but only peripherally — from “the media, law enforcement and/or other government agencies, emergency managers, private companies, individuals, etc.” This means that the NWS Weather Fatalities is a catch-as-catch-can compilation of reports about possible deaths that are recorded in a database about NWS recognized “storms or other significant weather phenomena”.
A happens-every-winter well-below freezing night in which a family freezes to death in their car after breaking down in a remote area will not be in the database and not in NWS Weather Fatalities. A senior citizen who quietly dies of hypothermia in her un- or under-heated apartment will not be in the database. A homeless person dying on the streets of Chicago, the windy city, is not counted. After all, it is expected to be cold in the winter and being cold is not a “weather event”. However, declared Heat Waves are weather events are entered in the data base, and reports in the media or from other authorities (hospitals etc) are search out and recorded.
In short, the NWS Weather Fatalities statistic is a non-scientific gathering of data only “intended for internal NWS statistical review to assist NWS in its primary mission of issuing forecasts and warnings for hazardous weather events.”
You can dig into this yourself at National Weather Service Instruction (NWSI) 10-1605 (.pdf).
Bottom Line:
EPA promulgates unscientific, unreliable information from another federal agency, NWS, despite the fact that it directly contradicts their own data [Climate Indicators], in a go-along-to-get-along, “it forwards the agenda” manner.
The Climatist talking point “Heat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States” is FALSE – and this fact is well documented in the peer reviewed climate and health literature.
EPA says it will clarify this point on the Climate Indicator – Heat-related Deaths web page….soon, maybe.
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Author’s Comment:
And so it goes. The U.S. Federal agencies intended to supply citizens and policy-makers with carefully analyzed scientific data don’t do so – at least on this topic at EPA and NOAA’s NWS. It is embarrassing. Their excuses are embarrassing.
I’ll let you know if they actually keep their promise and sort it out – personally, I doubt it. If they update the Heat/Cold Deaths data they will have to publicly reject NWS’s Weather Fatalities data.
We’ll see….
Thanks for reading.
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Not surprised by their bad data. Their main (unstated) purpose/goal is to eliminate as much industry from the US as possible.
So what does EPA and NWS show for cold related deaths during the Feb, 2021 _was it – cold spell. I have read elsewhere that somewhere between 200 and 700 died.
Denis ==> Here’s the Wayback Machine archived page for 2021:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220724121439/https://www.weather.gov/hazstat/
102 cold deaths. Can you point us to better, more complete data for that “cold spell”?
Denis ==> In January 2022, the Texas Tribune reported the final death toll of the Feb 2021 freeze as 246.
NOAA NCEI reported “over 200”.
Yet, NOAA NWS reported only 106 for the whole country for the whole year.
Why should any EPA numbers be better than the “endangerment finding”?
i once saw the park service recover the bodies of a pair of hikers in Carlsbad Caverns Nat’l Park. they didn’t bring enough water for the 110F day they got.
people don’t even try that when it’s -30F
Fun related story. Back in college during winter semester break (first week February) two roommates and I decided to snowshow/camp up to the ‘famous’ weather station at the top of Mount Greylock, highest ‘mountain’ in Massachusetts. Took three days from parking lot base because of 3-4 foot deep powdery snow and no trail, just a topomap and compass, so lots of minor detours around deadfalls and such with pretty significant backpacks. Mine was then and remains a well worn Kelty, equipment tuned to an outdoor art form.
Of course, we were all outdoor experienced and prepared with proper winter gear, foldable lite 18” crosscut saw plus small lite ax to cut/split standing deadwood for dry firewood for badly needed cooking and nightly warming reflector fires.
Was so cold the morning of the third camp day near the top of Greylock that I poured a steaming hot mug of fresh coffee off the breakfast cooking fire into my old WW2 surplus aluminum canteen cup, and after half a mug the coffee was frozen solid. No idea what the temperature was, but that is COLD.
We finally reached the mountaintop weather station about 11 that morning. The staff were shocked when we knocked on the door (they are famous for providing hot coffee and donuts to all winter snowmobile visitors).The staff said we didn’t hear your snowmobiles. We said yup, we snowshoed up. Got us extra donuts.
We did take the easy way down, using the snow shoe glide technique to
‘semi- ski’ the compacted snowmobile path back down in just one afternoon.
Rud ==> Great story…the crazy things we got away with in our youth.
Back around ’80, I and a partner, had a contract to cruise a few thousand acres on the upper east slope of Mt. Greylock. We got up on the mountain from the town of Adams with a snowmobile but then snowshoed most of the day. The fact that they contracted that as a winter project is sufficient proof of just how stupid the state is. We could have gone much faster without the snow. Or maybe they did it to punish me for constantly telling them how incompetent they were. 🙂
Nobody likes to be told that the reason their baby is ugly is because the parents are ugly.
my son likes winter camping in northern MN. has -25F rated bags. Nice lightweight tent. tried it out in fall, worked perfectly. went with 3 other guys. things just go wrong at those temps. exhalation moisture froze up everything. after 3 days the just abandoned the gear ( our property) and high tailed it back across the lake to safety.
plenty of good beer died a horrible death that trip
I’ve always preferred a 26″ Collins machete slipped down between the aluminum pack frame and nylon backpack. I’ve found the machete to be lighter than any axe and to have other uses. I was able to cut through 6″ pine faster than my friend using a long-handled axe.
I actually have had for many decades two backpack axes, the Eastwing 16” at 2.86# and the Eastwing 26” at 3.44#. To avoid carrying file sharpener weight make whichever axe razor sharp before setting out, and be careful in use. Eastwing stainless steel alloy will last sufficiently sharp for splitting firewood well more than a week unless you carelessly ding the blade.
For that long ago uphill snowshoe jaunt was the 16” for min weight, since all the for sure DRY Feb standing deadwood would be fairly small up to 6” diameter at the snow line.
For summer/fall backpacking (like Appalachian trail on my honeymoon) always took the more powerful but almost a pound heavier 26” axe—still fit into the Kelty. Same very lite weight folding crosscut saw for both.
I invested also in a small high quality saw blade fine round file sharpener. Nothing more frustrating than a partly dull crosscut blade starting to warp cut and potentially jam. Learned that one the hard way.
Sort of like waterproofing your matches with a film of molten paraffin (not just the match head—duh) BEFORE putting into the supposedly waterproof match container—do NOT rely on a ‘waterproof’ match container when hiking in serious rain despite a poncho over backpack. ‘Waterproof’ is NOT damp proof.
Thank God by that hike had also included in the backpack kit a handful of dry tinder (outer birchbark weights nothing, and a ziplock bag or equivalent will keep it sufficiently dry) plus a small light weight fire spark striker just in case no more matches. Beats the hell out of rubbing sticks together.
Tried that once just for the experience. Eventually works (shoe lace bow ‘violining) on pointed shaft pressed by carved hand palm wood shaft holder into very dry hardwood side receptacle/notch with tinder at the notch—you don’t ignite the wood, you ignite the tinder from the wood friction heat once it reaches about 486F and starts smoking) but PITA.
Old very experienced Eagle Scout trail optimization learnings.
I live a couple of miles west of the Continental Divide Trail in MT, a very popular
destination with people from around the world hiking it. It has however
never been hiked in the winter. There’s a MT guy who has tried to do
the northern section in winter a couple of time but has failed and had
he not had someone backing him up he would have died. I’ve snowshoed
and skied around the trail for close to 50yrs and have gotten into
some very difficult sections a number of times. Snow will blow off of trees into
the bottoms and I’ve gotten into some deep areas with powder well over 12-15 ft
deep. The first time I got into one of those situations it took several hours to go
a qt of a mile and we were at near total exhaustion at night fall.
It couldn’t have been that hot in the caverns.
“The NWS does not guarantee the accuracy or validity of its information.”
Of course not, for two reasons. 1. It isn’t theirs, and 2. It is wrong.
Par for official government ‘climate science’.
Another example. I went through every single ‘increasing weather extremes’ example in Chapter 1 of the 2014 National Climate Assessment in essay ‘Credibility Conundrums’ in ebook Blowing Smoke. The NCAs are Congressionally mandated, and assembled by multiple federal agencies via a joint task force. Every single example was either falsely contrived (Texas drought) or simply flat out wrong (Chicago blizzard).
The EPA response waffle to KH is worthy of much ridicule. Only update half the information— get around to the other half somewhen. Oh, and our EPA conclusion based on our willfully incomplete information isn’t really ours, it’s from the NWS.
Well done followup post, Kip. Very WUWT worthy.
Rud ==> On the upside, mentioning my journalist status got an answer and a promise to clarify….
maybe…someday…
Were those the cold deaths in July? All the rest is annual data.
Particularising to weather events distorts the picture, in the US and other developed countries at comparable latitudes excess winter deaths seem to be between 10% — 20% when influenza and other bugs are about to challenge mainly the frail elderly. That’s just common knowledge.
Excess winter deaths (EWD) = total deaths during the four winter months minus half the deaths in the eight non-winter months.
Aren’t there numerous “fact-check” agencies now that jump on any and all climate related stories to call out “misinformation”, “disinformation” and especially “denialism”?
Put out a call for help to a few of these agencies, Kip.
/ sarc.
There used to be only information, informed by verifiable facts and common sense. All else was just false nonsense. Then the progressive left developed two new artfully ‘helpful’ categories.
The left’s problem now is, they have been caught out and are fully exposed. This is a good thing, so we can revert back to verifiable information or nonsense.
The US Deep Administrative State is very consistent.
Leftists lie and deceive about every subject. And they try to do it in a way that sounds logical and scientific. This subject is no different than any other subject.
On the subject of CO2
Nothing good can be said about CO2
They will never admit that warmer winters from CO2 enrichment benefits heart patients and reduces heart attacks in the winter months
That means the seasonal trend of heart attacks, highest in the cold months, has to be rejected as a weather related death.
The result is very few of the 3.3 million annual US deaths can be blamed entirely on very cold or very hot weather.
If an American citizen says something good about CO2, the Joe Bribe’em FBI will investigate, and they may be charged by the DOJ with Climate Disinformation. Which is even worse than trespassing inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Kip, I was stunned by the reference to the NWS. That is not the NWS I know, and I know them well. I’m not making the appeal to authority argument. But I was part of the original AWIPS development. Spent many years working with them. I note the references lead to NCDC, which is not part of NWS. NOAA-NESDIS-NCDC is not part of NOAA-NWS. Note the organizational branches. NWS an operational organization that issues forecasts. NESDIS-NCDC is the data repository. NCDC is wonky, thanks to a former director it drank the Klimate Kool-Aid. He tried to convince Congress to reorganize NCDC into a national climate service, equal organizationally to the NWS. Thankfully, Congress was not impressed. Unlike NCDC, NWS answers to the public every day for accurate forecasts. Believe me, they are well aware of it. They track accuracy metrics and set annual goals. You cite NWSI 10-1605. That bar chart of fatalities is not in it; neither in the 2016 edition, nor in the current. The graph actually draws on data from the National Centers for Environmental Information, which is part of NCDC, not NWS. I am surprised and disappointed NWS would publish the graph you cited. Or what part of NWS did. Or why they would.
Julius ==> Not quite sure what you are on about. The origins of the data from which NWS derives the data for the Weather Fatalities is clearly stated in the essay above. NWSI 10-1605 is the reference document for the input of data to the Storm Data database — and is titled: “NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE INSTRUCTION 10-1605 MARCH 23, 2016 Operations and Services Performance, NWSPD 10-16 STORM DATA PREPARATION”. Of course the graphic is not in the instructions. It is found at the NWS website here.
Kip,
You may have seen these as they are readily available in an internet search:
https://ourworldindata.org/part-one-how-many-people-die-from-extreme-temperatures-and-how-could-this-change-in-the-future
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2023/07/19/excessive-summer-heat-can-kill-but-extreme-cold-causes-more-fatalities/
If you have seen these, perhaps at least others will find the articles to be of interest. They both support your position that deaths from cold are far more frequent than from heat. What is disturbing is how recalcitrant the EPA is to provide the public with the best available information instead of biased data that supports the official paradigm.
Clyde ==> Yes, thanks, appreciate it. Readers still looking at comments will do well to look at both links — The Peer-Reviewed Literature is solid on heat and cold deaths — cold kills far more, and mostly MODERATE cold, not extreme cold. — Both are in my sources folder on heat/cold deaths — but I will use them once more in the 3rd follow-up on this….hopefully NOAA NWS or EPA will do something to correct the misinformation at NWS Weather Fatalities.
Tony Heller produces graphs on his channel that clearly show the 1930’s being much warmer in America.
What they need to say is “heat flux” is a something cause of death. That way it works for both hot and cold!
Jesus, I can’t believe I’m helping them out with their own propaganda.
Hart ==> I take it you mean the difference between Human Optimal Internal Body Temperature and ambient temperature. When outside ambient is too far from 98°F and uncorrected with clothing or access to a heated/cooled space, then the body has to use its resources to adjust. Sweating for cooling and burning internal body fuel (sugars, fats) to keep warm.
When the body loses the battle with the non-optimum temperature, and body temperature goes too high or too low, hyper- or hypothermia happens. Even mild-ish hypothermia can allow disease states to set in which kill in days,
The potted summary is that everything is well and good within the thermoneutral zone, but below the lower critical temperature or above the upper critical temperature, the body has to do something.
Below the LCT, the metabolic rate has to increase or some form of insulation be used. Above the UCT, heat is lost through evaporation.
Humans have a rather high LCT, well above ambient temperature for most of the world during most of the year. The human body is well adapted to lose heat through evaporation, at high metabolic rates or above the UCT. This does require replacement of water and electrolytes.
Apparently, the human TNZ is between 20 degrees C to 30 degrees C, give or take a little.
Good article Kip. One little quibble about the following statement of yours:
It turns out that, just like the main stream media and all of the Climate Crisis Propaganda outlets, EPA uses the “analysis conducted by the National Weather Service”. EPA has its own data collected from the CDC (via records of actual death certificates) but doesn’t use it in “contextualizing” the statement that “Heat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States”.
Ms. Powell for the EPA was not saying, as I read your comment as suggesting, that the EPA does not use its data to contextualize the NWS-data-based statement. She was saying that the NWS-based statement (which she knows is wrong) is not based on EPA data but is merely used to contextualize the rest of the EPA’s discussion of heat. The NWS-based statement is the contextualizing statement, not the hypothetical EPA-data-based statement to which you refer. For me this makes it worse. It is not just that the EPA is failing to contextualize (i.e., give a warning about) a properly-included NWS-based statement. It is including the NWS-based statement despite knowledge of its falsity and claiming that doing so is proper contextualization of its discussion about heat. The problem is not the failure of the EPA to comment on the NWS-based statement, but its decision to include it in the first place. The EPA should not be using a false statement to provide context, period. Instead, the EPA should delete the statement entirely and replace it with “Cold is the leading weather-related killer in the United States.”
““Storm Data is an official publication of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which documents the occurrence of storms and other significant weather phenomena having sufficient intensity to cause loss of life, injuries, significant property damage, and/or disruption to commerce.”“
It sounds like they are counting deaths from things like hurricanes, tornados, floods, etc. as “heat related” rather than just deaths because a person got too hot?
(And considering how some blame cold on AGW, how many cold deaths ended up in the heat death column?)