Extreme Heat Events and Climate Change

[Msalgado]

I'm not sure how much interest there is in discussing extreme heat but I figured I would create a thread to discuss it since the Arctic Sea Ice thread was being even further derailed (again).

The specific issue I am responding to was the uproar over my post which said:

Over the past semester I worked with a professor studying extreme heat risk increase due to climate change. One key thing I found out regarding the difficulty in quantifying the effects was that many who died were in such a weak state they actually would have passed in the near future. The heat wave didn't really kill them; it simply accelerated an already inevitable death. Its something to really keep in mind when trying to gauge the increased risk posed by extreme heat.

Some of the responses are as follows:

What nonsense you post! The full sentence you posted above, of which I highlighted a portion, was - "The heat wave didn't really kill them; it simply accelerated an already inevitable death.". Can you truly not see the logical fallacy in your assertion - actually a couple of logical fallacies.

The first is your poetic phrase "didn't really kill them" - by that did you mean that they aren't really dead, they weren't really buried, and there was really no loss to their families and communities? That it was really just a big misunderstanding or prank? Or is your phrase just a really poor way of claiming their deaths weren't caused by the heat wave?

Now let's look at the broken logic underlying your phrase "it simply accelerated an already inevitable death". What an appalling valuation of human life is revealed in that phrase. As others have pointed out, death is already inevitable for all of us. So by your logic there is no such thing as murder - "Your Honor, the defendant didn't murder that family, he simply accelerated already inevitable deaths". Any action, no matter how heinous, no matter how many deaths it caused, is okay according to your logic because it simply accelerated an already inevitable death. If you reflect for a moment on the penalties and repercussions of accelerating an already inevitable death by even a minute or two you'll realize that our society places a much higher value on human life that you demonstrated in your post.

And, yes, you made a value judgement in your post. You made a value judgement when you implied that the question of attributing cause of death is somehow different for heat-related deaths than it is for cold-related deaths. How is one easier or less important than the other? Sure it can be tough to attribute cause of death - but actuarial science, which studies patterns of death and dying, has developed some sophisticated statistical tools for extracting just that sort of data.

This whole issue of yours is OT for this thread so my suggestion is to start a new thread if you want to try to justify your nonsense. You've wasted enough time and space here.

Where is he wrong? Do you care to refute any of his points? You're the one who posted those words that are being deemed so offensive...

First, its utter ridiculous to compare what I said to events that cut life short dramatically. Obviously a car accident which robs life of a young healthy adult is not even remotely comparable to a heat wave that puts extra stress on the body of a person in the late stages of a terminal illness. You can talk all you want about value of human life but when looking at it completely as a statistical issue that is not going to come into play. If this is a real issue, one would expect an increase above the normal death rate during the heat wave followed by a period of time where the death rate was below normal.

Also, I never made said that someone dying was a good outcome or desirable. I'm speaking here of the attribution of a death to an event when what contributed to the death was not only the heat wave but the previous condition that had already taken that person to condition where they were weak and extremely susceptible.

This comment was especially ridiculous:

It's also total spin. You could make the same arguments about heart attacks, cancer, Parkinson's... any disease that occurs most frequently towards the end of life. Of course nobody would, because it's a ridiculous position.

Why? Because peer reviewed research has taken this position

Examples:

Noting that the number of current heat-related deaths

in U.S. cities is considerable in spite of mortality displacement

(reduced mortality in the months following a heat event due to

increased early deaths of critically ill people who would have

died in the near-term regardless) and the increased use of air

conditioning, a substantial rise in weather-related deaths is the

157

most likely direct health outcome of climate change.

http://www.niehs.nih...ereport2010.pdf

In the assessment of the effects of heat on mortality, a

key question for policy makers is whether deaths mostly

arise in already frail individuals in whom exposure to

hot weather has hastened their deaths by a few days or

weeks. Between 20% and 40% of deaths during heatwaves

have been attributed to such short-term mortality

displacement in selected locations.20 The role of

displacement is likely to be smaller in situations in

which heat-related deaths are not restricted to chronic

diseases in elderly individuals—eg, during heatwaves

when a higher proportion of deaths might arise from

heatstroke in otherwise healthy individuals,21–23 or in lowincome

countries where heat-related deaths from

infectious diseases might be common.24

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/20153519

Those are just the 2 examples I have from papers on my home computer. The vast majority of the papers I read discussing the effects of extreme heat on mortality rates discussed this issue because its not ridiculous - its quite real. As I suggested in the other thread, a simple Google search for mortality displacement would have shown that. Its not an obscure and unknown phenomenon to those who are doing the actual research.

Further proof in the difficulty in quantifying the amount of deaths attributable to a heat wave can be gained very easily by looking at the estimates for the 2003 European heat wave. The range is incredibly wide.

[ORH_wxman]

It is an inherent bias to always want to use anecdotel statements to support one's point. Very few, if anyone, is immune to this. Which is why it is good you brought peer reviewed analysis into this.

Observations of statistical significance trumps peer review, as is always the case. However, that statistically significant data is rare to come by in purely objective terms.

[Msalgado]

It is an inherent bias to always want to use anecdotel statements to support one's point. Very few, if anyone, is immune to this. Which is why it is good you brought peer reviewed analysis into this.

Observations of statistical significance trumps peer review, as is always the case. However, that statistically significant data is rare to come by in purely objective terms.

I definitely agree that none of us are perfect regarding objectivity (except maybe Don ha).

I can understand why people might be personally turned off at an apparent cavalier attitude regarding human life but I don't believe I ever took that type of an attitude. I would say that understanding where to devote limited resources to combat health risks is very important, however. We live in a world where we cannot save everyone and I would personally prefer to spend resources in the most effective manner. I can accept if someone disagrees with this mindset but I consider it akin to triage.

[ORH_wxman]

I definitely agree that none of us are perfect regarding objectivity (except maybe Don ha).

I can understand why people might be personally turned off at an apparent cavalier attitude regarding human life but I don't believe I ever took that type of an attitude. I would say that understanding where to devote limited resources to combat health risks is very important, however. We live in a world where we cannot save everyone and I would personally prefer to spend resources in the most effective manner. I can accept if someone disagrees with this mindset but I consider it akin to triage.

You were mostly attacked because many interpreted what you said as said as not valuing a human life (and I believe incorrectly at that)....many people are convinced that humans die from AGW...which I agree with....however, many also die with a cooling world or a status quo world.

If we cooled to LIA temps, then we would be talking about extreme famine with the crop failures in the northern hemisphere killing people. There is no reason to sensationalize that type of climate as some sort of utopia either.

[Vandy]

First off, I apologize for the tone of my reply. I read your comment as referring to folks who were at an increase risk towards heat related illness, such as the very young and the very old... not those who are already taken by some other illness. Now that you pointed that out, I see what you were getting at in the OP. Thanks for pointing out that research.

In regards to your later point, where do you feel resources should be spent? The study you quoted above mentions the importance of air conditioning. With rising nighttime lows, making cooling solutions such as AC and swamp coolers more accessible would seem to be a worthy use.

[Msalgado]

First off, I apologize for the tone of my reply. I read your comment as referring to folks who were at an increase risk towards heat related illness, such as the very young and the very old... not those who are already taken by some other illness. Now that you pointed that out, I see what you were getting at in the OP. Thanks for pointing out that research.

In regards to your later point, where do you feel resources should be spent? The study you quoted above mentions the importance of air conditioning. With rising nighttime lows, making cooling solutions such as AC and swamp coolers more accessible would seem to be a worthy use.

We all misread things on the internet. I appreciate you acknowledging my initial point.

The research I worked on was directly related to the spatial distribution of AC through the country and through specific cities. Basically, the professor I was working for was trying to develop a heat vulnerability mapping model so I tried to gather as much data on AC distribution as possible for him to integrate. As you would expect, the cities in the south where were you would see the highest percentage of housing units with AC while places further north had lower levels (with parts of the pacific coast showing virtually no AC at all). In the south I'm not sure how much room you would have to actually increase the number of households with AC. But in the north, you could definitely do some good. Especially in places like Buffalo and Chicago where disadvantaged populations show a substantially lower percentage of housing units with AC.

Its fairly complicated, however. Someone in the previous thread mentioned how northern latitudes in our country show longer life expectancy. Well, the south also shows much higher levels of health risks such as diabetes and has higher levels of poverty. Honestly, spending money on increased AC will likely never be as effective as spending that same amount of money in preventative health care that helps lower risk factors that can ultimately be exasperated by the extreme heat. However, I was involved with this work only because of my GIS background and not because I have any type of health/social science background so take that opinion for what its worth (not all that much).

[dabize]

First off, I apologize for the tone of my reply. I read your comment as referring to folks who were at an increase risk towards heat related illness, such as the very young and the very old... not those who are already taken by some other illness. Now that you pointed that out, I see what you were getting at in the OP. Thanks for pointing out that research.

In regards to your later point, where do you feel resources should be spent? The study you quoted above mentions the importance of air conditioning. With rising nighttime lows, making cooling solutions such as AC and swamp coolers more accessible would seem to be a worthy use.

Yes, but therein lies the real threat to society from direct heat stress due to AGW-associated heat waves - it is synergistic with many other societal stresses imposed by heat and other effects of AGW, such as drought, famine and (eventually) infrastructure collapse.

AC use is very energy intensive, and heat waves will cause many people to need it at once, causing brownouts and blackouts, causing death rates from heat stroke to rise further. Even if the grid infrastructure is improved, the increased incidence and severity of heat waves will have a multiplicative effect on AC use, driving up GHG emissions and ultimately accelerating AGW and its attendant heatwaves.

Not a happy situation, especially with all of the new immigrants coming from AC-challenged zones (India, Mexico etc.) to get relief from their much worse stresses (Can you imagine how those 115 degree days they were having in India would have felt to a resident of Delhi or Kanpur during their recent power outage?. I wonder if the authorities in those cities even count the "marginal deaths" among the elderly in a heat wave......

All coming our way, courtesy of AGW.

[Msalgado]

Yes, but therein lies the real threat to society from direct heat stress due to AGW-associated heat waves - it is synergistic with many other societal stresses imposed by heat and other effects of AGW, such as drought, famine and (eventually) infrastructure collapse.

AC use is very energy intensive, and heat waves will cause many people to need it at once, causing brownouts and blackouts, causing death rates from heat stroke to rise further. Even if the grid infrastructure is improved, the increased incidence and severity of heat waves will have a multiplicative effect on AC use, driving up GHG emissions and ultimately accelerating AGW and its attendant heatwaves.

Not a happy situation, especially with all of the new immigrants coming from AC-challenged zones (India, Mexico etc.) to get relief from their much worse stresses (Can you imagine how those 115 degree days they were having in India would have felt to a resident of Delhi or Kanpur during their recent power outage?. I wonder if the authorities in those cities even count the "marginal deaths" among the elderly in a heat wave......

All coming our way, courtesy of AGW.

Actually, there is quite a bit of evidence in the peer reviewed lit that people in places that are already in hot climates will be much better adapted to withstanding the stress from high heat events than those who live in more temperate areas. In other words, that person in India dealing with 115 degree heat is likely to be in a much better position to deal with it than the person in France dealing with 100 degree heat.

However, this is also hard to quantify because you can't directly compare heat waves in India to those in Europe because overall health of the population is not the same. While people in India may have a better adaptation to heat than those in Europe, they're also more likely to be in poor health which likely has a larger affect than any mitigation obtained through adaptation.

I definitely agree with your point on AC. I don't have the study on hand but I know I read one earlier this year that attributed much of the upcoming CO2 emissions directly to AC use.

[tacoman25]

Yes, but therein lies the real threat to society from direct heat stress due to AGW-associated heat waves - it is synergistic with many other societal stresses imposed by heat and other effects of AGW, such as drought, famine and (eventually) infrastructure collapse.

AC use is very energy intensive, and heat waves will cause many people to need it at once, causing brownouts and blackouts, causing death rates from heat stroke to rise further. Even if the grid infrastructure is improved, the increased incidence and severity of heat waves will have a multiplicative effect on AC use, driving up GHG emissions and ultimately accelerating AGW and its attendant heatwaves.

Not a happy situation, especially with all of the new immigrants coming from AC-challenged zones (India, Mexico etc.) to get relief from their much worse stresses (Can you imagine how those 115 degree days they were having in India would have felt to a resident of Delhi or Kanpur during their recent power outage?. I wonder if the authorities in those cities even count the "marginal deaths" among the elderly in a heat wave......

All coming our way, courtesy of AGW.

If people really can't handle the heat, then I suppose we could see mass migrations into Canada, Russia, Scandinavia, etc. There are plenty of places further north that are sparsely populated now.

However, I think there are some other questions that need to be answered. Sure, everyone always points to the 2003 European heatwave and how deadly it was. But why exactly was it so deadly? People all over the world deal with those types of temperatures on a regular basis and survive just fine, and many of them don't have A/C. So why exactly did so many people die in that event and what could have been done to prevent it, aside from more A/C?

It doesn't make sense for me to say: "Look at the 2003 European heatwave, that's what's coming our way" when there were probably some other major factors aside from the temperatures themselves, which many humans cope with just fine, that led to that many deaths.

[tacoman25]

Actually, there is quite a bit of evidence in the peer reviewed lit that people in places that are already in hot climates will be much better adapted to withstanding the stress from high heat events than those who live in more temperate areas. In other words, that person in India dealing with 115 degree heat is likely to be in a much better position to deal with it than the person in France dealing with 100 degree heat.

But if the overall climate of France warms over the coming decades, then won't people there become more acclimated to the heat?

[TerryM]

In Canada we now expend more energy on summer AC than on winter heating.

And

Immigrating into Canada is difficult unless you are a medical doctor or are bringing lots of dollars - I assume the same may be true for other advanced countries with an extensive safety net in place (for residents).

Temperature is much less an issue than wet bulb temperature. I've been comfortable at 115 in the desert and miserable at 90 with high humidity. I'm an old man in poor health - but fear not - I'll always be able to afford AC, and a river is close by should the grid collapse.

Terry

[dabize]

But if the overall climate of France warms over the coming decades, then won't people there become more acclimated to the heat?

You mean physiologically? Are we discussing the inheritance of acquired characteristics?

Assuming we are not, the functions which govern the efficiency of metabolic heat dispersal (i.e. renal, CV and autonomic functions) aren't very amenable to changes that anticipate episodic heat waves.

They might be if there was a CONSTANT heat stress, but that isn't what we're discussing (I hope).

Behaviorally - that is different. Eventually the French will all buy AC units and/or move to caves in the Dordogne.

[dabize]

In Canada we now expend more energy on summer AC than on winter heating.

And

Immigrating into Canada is difficult unless you are a medical doctor or are bringing lots of dollars - I assume the same may be true for other advanced countries with an extensive safety net in place (for residents).

Temperature is much less an issue than wet bulb temperature. I've been comfortable at 115 in the desert and miserable at 90 with high humidity. I'm an old man in poor health - but fear not - I'll always be able to afford AC, and a river is close by should the grid collapse.

Terry

I've been in Delhi just before the monsoon in June, and I can tell you that they have all the RH required, plus temps of 105+.

Terry - that is a telling stat about Canada. I was a McGill student as an undergrad years ago (late '70s), and I remember how nice the summers were in MTL compared to just about anywhere on the USA coast. No longer true?

[ORH_wxman]

I've been in Delhi just before the monsoon in June, and I can tell you that they have all the RH required, plus temps of 105+.

Terry - that is a telling stat about Canada. I was a McGill student as an undergrad years ago (late '70s), and I remember how nice the summers were in MTL compared to just about anywhere on the USA coast. No longer true?

It doesn't appear summer temps are any warmer since 2000 than in the 1970s in most of central/southern Canada.

[tacoman25]

In Canada we now expend more energy on summer AC than on winter heating.

And

Immigrating into Canada is difficult unless you are a medical doctor or are bringing lots of dollars - I assume the same may be true for other advanced countries with an extensive safety net in place (for residents).

Temperature is much less an issue than wet bulb temperature. I've been comfortable at 115 in the desert and miserable at 90 with high humidity. I'm an old man in poor health - but fear not - I'll always be able to afford AC, and a river is close by should the grid collapse.

Terry

Link? I'm sure many Canadians use heat in fall/spring as well, much more than they use A/C overall.

[tacoman25]

I've been in Delhi just before the monsoon in June, and I can tell you that they have all the RH required, plus temps of 105+.

Terry - that is a telling stat about Canada. I was a McGill student as an undergrad years ago (late '70s), and I remember how nice the summers were in MTL compared to just about anywhere on the USA coast. No longer true?

See Will's map.

The warmest Montreal has got this summer is 91.

[dabize]

See Will's map.

The warmest Montreal has got this summer is 91.

I can well believe that the temps haven't changed much, but I'm wondering if RH is higher.

That was the main difference between MTL and places like BOS and HPN back in the '70s.

[Jonger]

Yes, but therein lies the real threat to society from direct heat stress due to AGW-associated heat waves - it is synergistic with many other societal stresses imposed by heat and other effects of AGW, such as drought, famine and (eventually) infrastructure collapse.

AC use is very energy intensive, and heat waves will cause many people to need it at once, causing brownouts and blackouts, causing death rates from heat stroke to rise further. Even if the grid infrastructure is improved, the increased incidence and severity of heat waves will have a multiplicative effect on AC use, driving up GHG emissions and ultimately accelerating AGW and its attendant heatwaves.

Not a happy situation, especially with all of the new immigrants coming from AC-challenged zones (India, Mexico etc.) to get relief from their much worse stresses (Can you imagine how those 115 degree days they were having in India would have felt to a resident of Delhi or Kanpur during their recent power outage?. I wonder if the authorities in those cities even count the "marginal deaths" among the elderly in a heat wave......

All coming our way, courtesy of AGW.

I'll take a world with an industrial revolution. Your point is completely thrown out the window by this.

We can plant some trees and use our post-industrial revolution technology to sequester out the CO2.

[Jonger]

In Canada we now expend more energy on summer AC than on winter heating.

And

Immigrating into Canada is difficult unless you are a medical doctor or are bringing lots of dollars - I assume the same may be true for other advanced countries with an extensive safety net in place (for residents).

Temperature is much less an issue than wet bulb temperature. I've been comfortable at 115 in the desert and miserable at 90 with high humidity. I'm an old man in poor health - but fear not - I'll always be able to afford AC, and a river is close by should the grid collapse.

Terry

Because natural gas is cheap. Once your power is converted to natural gas this will balance out.

Claiming your environment is warmer is flat out disingenous. Having an annual increase in temps of 1-2 degrees isn't going to really affect heating/cooling differences all that much... This is because of power costs and origination.

You make good posts Terry, but when you try and tie local weather into the equation, it looks bad.

The lower great lakes from 2000-2010 was 0.5 degrees below the 100 year average in Winter alone.

[TerryM]

Link? I'm sure many Canadians use heat in fall/spring as well, much more than they use A/C overall.

Blooper - Electric use peaks in summer - not total energy.

Canada's a rich country & AC's are ubiquitous. The latest figure i came across for Ontario was >80% of homes - back in 2008. The point is really mute at any rate. Without a war or something similar large numbers of Americans won't be allowed to immigrate into Canada. My wife spent 5 years jumping through hoops to get landed immigrant status and she'd been married to a Canadian for 20+ years and had personal assets worth more than a million.

Canada's never been know as a place for poor and huddled masses.

Don't the latest AMS statements indicate we should expect more hot weather - or was that just hot air.

[dabize]

I'll take a world with an industrial revolution. Your point is completely thrown out the window by this.

We can plant some trees and use our post-industrial revolution technology to sequester out the CO2.

I think there is a very appropriate old German saying for this.

"The trees do not grow up to the sky"

I agree about the need for an industrial society - we need it to support 90% of the people on the planet.

However, by not reading the writing on the wall and shifting away from fossil fuels, we're industrializing ourselves out of our ecological/environmental comfort zone.

And sequestration, even if it works, will require a huge input of energy.

So we won't be doing it on an effective scale until we replace our use rate of fossil fuels by 150%.

I'm a big believer that solar and wind can provide enough juice to run our civilization eventually, but getting there looks to be a bigger and bigger problem.

[Jonger]

I think there is a very appropriate old German saying for this.

"The trees do not grow up to the sky"

I agree about the need for an industrial society - we need it to support 90% of the people on the planet.

However, by not reading the writing on the wall and shifting away from fossil fuels, we're industrializing ourselves out of our ecological/environmental comfort zone.

And sequestration, even if it works, will require a huge input of energy.

So we won't be doing it on an effective scale until we replace our use rate of fossil fuels by 150%.

I'm a big believer that solar and wind can provide enough juice to run our civilization eventually, but getting there looks to be a bigger and bigger problem.

Well high gas prices are helping.... My theory is that the well is running dry on oil, but that's another conversation.

[dabize]

Well high gas prices are helping.... My theory is that the well is running dry on oil, but that's another conversation.

Agreed. We have to be able to afford to extract the oil, otherwise it might as well not be there.

Check out The Oil Drum blog for that.

[ORH_wxman]

Canada's never been know as a place for poor and huddled masses.

Don't the latest AMS statements indicate we should expect more hot weather - or was that just hot air.

I'm not particularly worried about having to migrate into Canada anytime soon. We've had a few hot summers recently...really going back to the mid 90s when the AMO flipped...which correlates pretty nicely with hot CONUS summers.

We are essentially a wash here compared to the previous +AMO phase from about 1930-1960.

I expect summers to get warmer in my lifetime and expect that at some point, we'll break the July 2012 record in my lifetime as well. But I certainly will not start worrying about having to migrate north. The temperatures just aren't going up that fast. I don't find it very alarming. We coped with worse extremes in the past with inferior technology, and I'm sure we'll cope with the ones in the future.

[tamarack]

And sequestration, even if it works, will require a huge input of energy.

So we won't be doing it on an effective scale until we replace our use rate of fossil fuels by 150%.

I'm a big believer that solar and wind can provide enough juice to run our civilization eventually, but getting there looks to be a bigger and bigger problem.

What sort of sequestration do you mean? One form, increasing forests (both in acreage and in biomass per unit area), should not be all that energy intensive. It would only be a minority player, but I think that solutions are likely to involve a large group of such minority players. I'm also puzzled about replacing fossil fuels "by 150%" (I'm nitpicky about arithmetic.) How does one exceed 100% replacement? (which I see as unreachable in any practical sense, though any economically feasible reductions/replacement is important.)

I see wind as another one of the many minority players, and solar with more potential as it's use becomes more efficient.

Blooper - Electric use peaks in summer - not total energy.

Thanks for the clarification. I still find it an amazing fact, but no longer at mind-boggling level.

[Msalgado]

It would be expected for cooling to use more energy - especially as we go forward and efficiency continues to improve because you cannot passively keep a person cool in a hot air mass while you can definitely keep a person warm simply by more effective trapping of body heat (blankets - coats - etc).