ENVIRONMENTAL CENTS: How Much Hotter is it?
Bruce Saller breaks it down.
By Bruce Saller
WRITER
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Last year was the hottest on record since 1850, when temperature data colleciton began.
So far, this year has even been hotter than 2023. But how much warmer has it been in Fredericksburg?
One way to see the change is to use degree days. Degree days measure how cold or warm a location is. A degree day compares the average of the daily high and low temperatures to 65°.
If the average temperature is above 65°, the difference (avg temp - 65°) is the number of cooling degree days (CDDs). If the average temperature is below 65°, the difference (65° - avg temp) is the number of heating degree days (HDDs).
These terms may seem backwards, but these measures were developed for utility companies to help estimate the amount of energy needed to heat (HDDs) or cool (CDDs) buildings. So, a hotter summer day has more CDDs and a hotter winter day has less HDDs, and the reverse for colder days.
HDDs and CDDs are accumulated by months and years. Summer/winter months generally only have either CDDs or HDDs, but spring/fall months have both.
The National Weather Service has collected temperature data for numerous cities, including Fredericksburg, from 1991 to the present, and calculated HDD/CDD monthly averages based on the data from 1991-2020, along with daily and monthly actuals.
Here are the 2023 and 2024 average monthly temperature changes from the 1991-2020 average (data notes follow article)1:
Which results in an average temperature 2.11 degrees above average for 2023.
Which results in an average temperature 3.51 degrees above average thru July 9 of this year.
2023 had a wide variation in temperature differences, ranging from about -3 to +8 degrees. The 2024 deltas have been in a much smaller range, from about +2.5 to +4.6 degrees, with a higher annual difference so far. (I’ll publish updated data at the beginning of every month.)
So, Fredericksburg is now experiencing temperatures that are several degrees higher than the 1991-2020 average. If the temperature continues to increase at the same rate, in 2050 Fredericksburg will be about 6-8 degrees above that average.
While it is nice to have warmer winters (unless you ski), I don’t think most of us want to have summers that are hotter than we are experiencing now.
So, what can you do to help prevent this?
Purchase energy star appliances when replacing appliances/hot water heater/heat pump and get a federal tax credit.
Walk or ride a bicycle instead of driving
Eat less meat and more plant-based food and be more sustainable.
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CDD/HDD data notes:
Monthly deltas calculated using the following formula (positive result is hotter):
((average HDD – actual HDD) + (actual CDD – average CDD))/number of days in month.
Most months had complete data. A few months were missing a day or two of data. For those days, I averaged the CDD/HDD for the previous and the next day. September 2023 was the outlier with seven missing days of data. I excluded that month from all results. June/July 2024 results are from the Free Lance Star since NWS data is incomplete for those months.
Thank you for reporting: numbers we see on the thermometer cannot be bent. Keeping track is essential to evaluate the impact of the global warming issue and make decisions