Environmental Economics

Adaptation to climate change at Northwestern North Carolina ski resorts

From the local paper (Changing climates means changing ski season):

Snowfall in the High Country is around 25 percent less than the long-term average, according to data from local meteorologist Ray Russell of Ray’s Weather Center. However, local ski resorts only need to maintain cold temperatures for a successful season.

Kimberly Jochl, vice president of Sugar Mountain Resort, notes how the resort is constantly investing in new snowmaking infrastructure. In order to make artificial snow, temperatures need to be at or below freezing.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, average global temperatures have risen nearly two degrees from 1901 to 2020. Although temperatures have been changing, Russell notes, “They can put so much snow on the slopes on a cold day that it mitigates a lot of the problems of climate change.”

“It’s a real science, it’s a real craft,” says Jochl of the specifics in snow making. Even if temperatures are not freezing but the humidity is low enough, there is a factor called wet bulb, a condition in which makers can still be able to blow snow at temperatures slightly above freezing.

This season, Sugar Mountain was able to open on November 15 after 24 hours of cold temperatures and snow blowing. “Weather is our friend. We work with Mother Nature as much as we can,” said Jochl.

“It’s amazing how much snow they can make now compared to 30 years ago,” said Russell.

Jochl notes how the majority of this season has [not] been cold and snowy with some warm spells here and there. Overall though, Jochl notes how this season has been a success due to the cold temperatures allowing the mountain to blow snow.

According to Russell, one of the most significant climatological aspects that is changing is the “false spring” that has been coming in late February or early March, where a warm spell comes in and, in essence, tricks crops and plants into thinking it is time to bloom.

Even when there are warm temperatures, the resort still often attracts skiers and visitors.

“The climate makes or breaks a ski business,” said Jochl, adding that the team at Sugar works hard to “squeeze every snowflake out (that) they can each season.”

Although temperatures fluctuate globally, technology is advancing alongside it to keep ski resorts in North Carolina booked and busy.

I added the [not] above because this season has not been cold and snowy. Jeezus folks, that confuses the whole article. 

You can see the snow totals at Ray's Weather. 

Daily Demand and Supply: Bill Nye Explains the Law of Demand...and Carbon Pricing, MFers.

Warning:  NSFW (Unless you work at a University and part of your job is to watch stuff like this and post it on a blog).

The highlights of this have been around all week, but most of the clips are just Bill Nye the Science Guy saying "motherf***ers.   But this segment on Last Week Tonight really does a nice job of simply explaining how Carbon Pricing works.  If you don't want to watch the whole thing, just fastforward to the 9:27 mark or so, and sit back and enjoy.

Bill Nye explains the Law of Demand from 10:21 to 10:37.

Now if I can just figure out how to use this in class without trigger warnings.

Predicting Adaptation to Climate Change using Regional Heterogeneity in Mortality Effects of Temperature

Hi!  I am glad to have gotten an invitation from John to guest-blog here.  I am an Associate Professor of economics at the Andrew Young School at Georgia State University. My research on environmental economics is in solar geoengineering, health effects of air pollution and climate change, behavioral economics, and some other stuff.  I teach environmental economics at the undergraduate and PhD level.

So let me start by highlighting some recent research that I've done with co-authors Nolan Miller and David Molitor of the University of Illinois.  In this article in The Conversation, we describe the results from a recent working paper in which we use claims data from Medicare combined with weather monitor data to estimate 1) the effect of temperature extremes on elderly mortality, 2) how these effects differ across different regions of the country, and 3) the extent to which this can inform us about the effects of climate change and the potential to adapt to climate change.

We summarize our findings on the first question:

Our key finding is that both heat waves and cold snaps increase mortality rates. For example, the mortality rate from a day with average temperatures between 90 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit is higher by about 1 death per 100,000 individuals than a day with an average temperature between 65 and 70 degrees. Deaths also increase, by about one-half per 100,000 individuals, on days when the average temperature is less than 20 degrees.

There is also substantial heterogeneity in these effects across the country (FYI the editors of The Conversation didn't want us to use fancy words like "heterogeneity," but I trust that readers of this blog will be OK with them):

In hot places like Miami, cold days have a very large impact on mortality, while the impact of hot days is smaller. In contrast, hot days in Fargo have a very large impact on mortality, but an additional cold day has little effect. In fact, the effect of the hottest days (90 degrees or higher) in the coldest places is about two to three times larger than the effect of the coldest days (less than 20 degrees) in the hottest places.

Finally, we use the cross-sectional heterogeneity across regions to predict the scope for future climate change adaptation.  Basically, as currently-cold places like Chicago warm up and start to look more like currently-warm places like Miami, climate-wise, those currently-cold places will begin to exhibit the temperature-mortality relationship that currently-warm places currently have. Make sense?

This graph summarizes our predictions on the effects of climate change, depending on whether we allow for regional heterogeneity or not and whether we allow for future adaptation or not.  Ignoring heterogeneity (blue bars) makes it look like climate change will be bad for hot places but actually good for cold places.  (This incidentally is what is presented in this recent study by Solomon Hsiang and co-authors, which got quite a bit of press.) But, once you account for regional heterogeneity (green bars), that's not true anymore - climate change is bad everywhere and even worse for cold places than for hot places.  Lastly, when allowing for adaptation (gray bars), climate change isn't as bad.

As we emphasize in the working paper and in the Conversation article, this doesn't mean that adaptation is a silver bullet that solves all climate change problems.  For one thing, we don't model the costs of adaptation, which could be substantial.  Second, we don't consider other responses to climate change like abatement or geoengineering. 

The two main takeaways are that 1) we need to carefully consider regional heterogeneity when modeling climate change impacts, and 2) we need to carefully consider adaptation when modeling climate change impacts. 

Is Climate Change Fair?

Just got around to reading the Hsiang et al piece in Science on the inequitable economics impacts of climate change.  Here's the abstract:

Estimates of climate change damage are central to the design of climate policies. Here, we develop a flexible architecture for computing damages that integrates climate science, econometric analyses, and process models. We use this approach to construct spatially explicit, probabilistic, and empirically derived estimates of economic damage in the United States from climate change. The combined value of market and nonmarket damage across analyzed sectors—agriculture, crime, coastal storms, energy, human mortality, and labor—increases quadratically in global mean temperature, costing roughly 1.2% of gross domestic product per +1°C on average. Importantly, risk is distributed unequally across locations, generating a large transfer of value northward and westward that increases economic inequality. By the late 21st century, the poorest third of counties are projected to experience damages between 2 and 20% of county income (90% chance) under business-as-usual emissions (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5).

Here's a pretty picture (with a really long caption) that sums things up:

Caption: County-level median values for average 2080 to 2099 RCP8.5 impacts. Impacts are changes relative to counterfactual “no additional climate change” trajectories. Color indicates magnitude of impact in median projection; outline color indicates level of agreement across projections (thin white outline, inner 66% of projections disagree in sign; no outline, ≥83% of projections agree in sign; black outline, ≥95% agree in sign; thick white outline, state borders; maps without outlines shown in fig. S2). Negative damages indicate economic gains. (A) Percent change in yields, area-weighted average for maize, wheat, soybeans, and cotton. (B) Change in all-cause mortality rates, across all age groups. (C) Change in electricity demand. (D) Change in labor supply of full-time-equivalent workers for low-risk jobs where workers are minimally exposed to outdoor temperature. (E) Same as (D), except for high-risk jobs where workers are heavily exposed to outdoor temperatures. (F) Change in damages from coastal storms. (G) Change in property-crime rates. (H) Change in violent-crime rates. (I) Median total direct economic damage across all sectors [(A) to (H)].

Env-Econ Summary: We're all screwed, just some of us are screwed more than others.   

Hello, weather and climate

Weather changes all the time; climate is the average line. Yes!! Great song. Well done Michelle Jewell. https://t.co/gZgkNlUcQW

— Charles Kolstad (@CharlesKolstad) March 14, 2016

National Weather Service: ‘Don’t Go Surfing Unless ...’

A bit late but still:

Warning that Hurricane Joaquin was expected to produce powerful winds, violent swells, and dangerous rip currents, the National Weather Service strongly advised Americans today not to go surfing unless they could really shred that shit. “As Joaquin gains strength and begins to approach the Eastern Seaboard, we would like to remind the public that they should not attempt to enter the surf if they are unprepared to carve up these bitchin’ tubes,” said NWS director Louis Uccellini, sternly warning that those not aggro enough to charge these gnar gnar waves are going to be getting seriously cranked all day. ...

via www.theonion.com

Photo of the Day

My wife wanted a picture of the rainbow over our house.  This is it.  Our house is the one in the middle.  Behind the trees.

Photo of the Day

After 4 inches of rain this week, the end is in sight.

Photo Credit: My iPhone 6

I'm non-mandatory #andI'mtryingtocatchuponabunchofstuffathome

From the inbox:

All classes that meet before 2 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 24, are now cancelled. Classes that meet at 2 p.m. and later will meet as scheduled. If this decision changes, notification will be sent by noon.

The adverse weather policy is in effect for staff employees, as follows:

1. Mandatory employees should report/remain at work to maintain mandatory operations.

2. Non-mandatory employees should make reasonable efforts to report/remain at work but   should exercise good judgment and appropriate caution when making travel decisions.

I was scheduled as a substitute for 8 am and 11 am classes. Dang (picture a single tear running down my face).

From the inbox:

The Adverse Weather Policy Discussion will be held as scheduled in IG Greer Auditorium Today, February 24, 2015 from 2:00 - 3:30 PM.

However, given today’s travel conditions, we have also scheduled a second session to be held Thursday afternoon, February 26, 2015 from 2:00 - 3:30 PM in IG Greer Auditorium.

If necessary, additional sessions and/or meetings with individual departments may be scheduled.

Is that irony?

Note: "Do not use very lengthy hashtags."

I'm having a snow day