J21.4
Regional Impacts on Energy Demands from a Changing Climate in Coastal California Environments
J.E. Gonzalez, Santa Clara Univ., Santa Clara, CA; and B. Lebassi, R. D. Bornstein, H. Taha, and R. D. Van Buskirk
Analysis of 35 years observed trends in summertime daily maximum and minimum temperatures in two non attainment California air basins showed coastal cooling and inland warming. To study the impact of these results on the energy consumption we analyzed the summertime cooling degree days (CDD) and winter time heating degree days (HDD) of California long term observed temperatures. In this research historical surface 2-m air temperature data analyses consist of long-term data records, from 159 locations in California, each with data period of 1970-2006 of daily average, minimum, and maximum data records. The primary sources of such data include the cooperative network, first order National Weather Service stations, and military weather stations. Analysis of the CDD/HDD has been undertaken for California in general and in the SFB and SoCAB in particular, under regional climate change conditions. Regional climate fluctuations have bigger effect on surface temperatures, which in turn affects the CDD and HDD. It has been observed that there has been an asymmetric increase of CDD between the coast and inland regions of California during the last 35 years, while the winter time HDD showed decreases in most of California. In general coastal areas experienced historical decrease of CDD while inland regions experienced increases in CDD. The summer time asymmetric increases in CDD is attributed to the sea breeze flows, which suggest an increase of the cold marine air intrusion due to the increase of the regional sea breeze potential, which naturally ventilates the coastal areas and mild the maximum temperatures, which contribute to the CDD decreases.
Joint Session 21, Weather and Climate in Coastal Urban Areas—I
Thursday, 15 January 2009, 8:30 AM-9:45 AM, Room 126A
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