Temperature measurement error may cause climate-impact studies to understate impacts by 15% or more
When policymakers and city officials plan for climate change, they rely on economic studies showing how extreme heat affects violent crime, public health, energy grids and crop yields.
Climate impact studies may be underestimating the effects of extreme heat by up to 15%, according to a new study. Researchers at Wake Forest University and UC San Diego found that temperature measurements used in these studies can contain substantial measurement errors, leading to a misrepresentation of the true impact of heat on various factors such as violent crime, public health, energy grids, and crop yields.
The problem arises from the use of statistical estimates, or proxies, of temperatures in specific locations, which fail to capture the systematic errors that traditional statistical assumptions do not account for. Using over 20 million crime records, the researchers discovered that the estimated effect of extreme heat on violent crime became smaller when analyzed at a coarser geographic scale.
While dense weather-station networks can yield more accurate temperature measurements, gridded data may perform better in areas with sparse monitoring. The study emphasizes the need for better spatial monitoring of temperature, including expanding and maintaining dense weather-station networks and carefully matching temperature measurements to the actual exposure of people, farms, businesses, and ecosystems.
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