Testing For Population Bias in California Warming

Luigi Ermini

No 199306, Working Papers from University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper finds that the differences between long-term temperature trends in fifty California counties are partially explained by population density for the post-war period 1947-1991, but not for the earlier period 1909-1946, nor for the whole sample. These results may indicate that the effect of population density - a proxy for concentration of economic activity - on long-term temperature trends sets in only after a density threshold. They also may indicate that population effects can be overshadowed by other causes of greater relative intensity. The paper also argues that the global warming debate raises an issue of cause-effect imbalance: as temperature series follow stationary processes around a deterministic time trend, global temperature increases cannot be explained by non-stationary uptrending phenomena, such as most-human-related factors (possibly including the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere).

Keywords: global warming; population bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13 pages
Date: 1993
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