IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGES IN THE NORTHERN PACIFIC COAST ON RELATED REGIONAL SCALE ENERGY DEMANDS

For the past few decades sea surface temperatures across the globe have been increasing, causing changes in the global and regional climates. The focus of this study is to determine the impacts of these climate changes in coastal California region and possible linkages to energy infrastructure. The specific goal of this study is to determine the changes in cooling degree days (CDD) for the Northern Pacific Coast of the U.S., with emphasis on the California region for the years 1970 to 2007. Daily, monthly and annual temperature trends in months May, June, July, August and September are used to complement this analysis. Temperature data from more than 300 surface weather stations were obtained from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). The work follows recent findings by the authors where the decreasing of maximum summer temperatures in two coastal air basins of California was attributed to the increase in sea breeze flow. This was caused by regional climate changes which led to induced sealand asymmetric warming and referred to as a reverse-reaction of global warming. This study aims to analyze temperature trends along the entire North Pacific Coast and over time, showing how it relates in the same temporal and spatial scales to changes in CDD. Finally, the study explores the possible correlations of decadal trends of CDD with actual summer peak electric utility data demonstrating how regional climate changes are affecting regional energy demands.Copyright © 2011 by ASME