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15 years ago i was the only one with AC in my building (20 apartments building). now only 6 apartments don't have AC (Bucharest)

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15 years ago, there were nearly twice as many people living in extreme poverty. The world is changing very rapidly. I lent the book to friends to read so I can only paraphrase from memory, but what Hans Rosling wrote in Factfulness is that he went back 20 years later to the same place in India, showing them pictures of how it was there 20 years ago and the huge improvements that were made, the people flat out didn't believe it. "Sure it was worse 20 years ago, but it was never that bad" was the people's response.

Romania is an example of a country that has developed a lot in the past few decades. I'm inclined to think that people can now afford AC, rather than that it's necessary. It's really nice having a cool place to work and sleep in, it really improves the quality of life, so when people can buy one, they would.

I don't know about the historical price of ACs when corrected for inflation, but it almost certainly didn't go up, and Romania doesn't have the temperatures they have near the equator. Those few degrees due to climate change is probably not the reason why suddenly a lot of people decided to buy one.

Here are Bucharest temperatures since 1860, measured from the Filaret station, according to Berkeley.

https://i.imgur.com/wolGEz3.png

So while global temperatures may have been rising, they have been flat for Bucharest.

The fact that you think it has been getting warmer for you there, however, is an interesting point about media effects and mass psychology.

EDIT: Here too, is the same data station after Berkeley's data quality process has been applied: https://i.imgur.com/LvmbD9v.png No comment.

What is "Berkeley's data quality process"? I've not heard of that. Thanks!

The implication is that Berkeley is "correcting" the temperature record in Bucharest to show rising temperatures over time even though the raw data don't show an overall increase. I'll let someone with more expertise comment on what the rationale behind Berkeley's process actually is.

I implied no such thing! I posted the raw data for the longest record Bucharest station that I could find, and included the adjusted data before someone could accuse me of hiding things.

Here it is on the Berkeley site. Raw data is the top graph, quality controlled (their term!) is the bottom graph.

http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/157726

If you want to find out their method, I'd recommend the following links:

http://berkeleyearth.org/about-data-set/

http://berkeleyearth.org/papers/

And please be more careful about accusations of climate change denialism. You could get people fired with that sort of thing.

Thank you for the links - I appreciate it!

Two stations close by report an increased temperature in the past 50 years: http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/157729 http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/19998

In all three cases, the data in their DB ends in 2013.

Look at their longitude and latitude. Those two are on the edges of Bucharest (which is why the one that you linked was set up in the 1950s, and the other in the 1970s). The longstanding temperature station is in the center of the city.

I think that what you are most likely seeing is the urban heat island effect rather than any incorrect measurements on the part of any of these stations. Areas undergoing urban expansion get hotter as they are built up.

The 2013 cutoff may be a limitation of the Berkeley data in general.

Sorry for the accusation - I was quite confused looking at the graphs.

Nah, the raw data shows the same thing. Look at the green line of "long-term trend" on the raw data picture.

Ah, I see a slight increase there. Thanks for pointing it out. I'd love to know more what was behind the "empirical breaks", especially the most recent one - they're applying almost a -1 degree Celsius correction currently.

So it's more or less 1 degree warmer than the 80s quite similar to the global average temperatures. What are you so smug about?

Are the people in Bucharest richer now than they were, and did ACs become cheaper?

While I too think it's warmer now where I live, and in the winters it definitely is, your anecdote does not show much.

You are missing a third option: AC became more necessary for normal life functioning

That's not an equivalent third option unless you're in a position to afford it.

Afford means different things for necessities and luxury goods, so, semantics

A luxury can easily become a "necessity" with increases in purchasing power and/or a decreases in product prices.

An anecdotal example. I purchased a home last year which did not have AC. The previous owners lived in the house for over 20 years with out ever "needing" an air conditioner. My wife and I did not make it to the summer before installing an AC. I have no doubt I could have survived without an AC but why bother? Its cheap (relatively speaking) and improves my quality of life.

It's also very dependent on personal adaptation. If you've always lived in an airconditioned space then you're not used to dealing with the heat. The previous owners likely were, and consequently were less bothered by it.

Putting food on the table isn't really a concern if you're all dead from heat exposure. Sounds like AC has just become a basic human need in some areas.

There are people living in 3rd world tropical countries who commonly experience 40C who might disagree with your "dead from heat exposure".

Same with countries in the middle east. When I was in Iraq during the summer, it would normally be ~120F in the shade during the day, and get up to the 130-140 range in direct sunlight. It's not like the villages without stable power or AC had people dropping dead from heat all the time, they dressed appropriately and would only do physical activities in the morning and evening. During the hottest part of the day they'd hang around inside out of the sun and relax. You'd still get hot and sweaty, but you wouldn't die.

Those people have been living in those temperatures for thousands of years. Their culture thrives in it. When heat waves hit temperate areas, people are not prepared. You sit out there in 140 degrees, and you're not going to survive very long without the knowledge to do so. Look at the animals dying in the polar regions, as their cold habitats warm up. No different.

Yep, and some of those people die because of it. The temperature is CHANGING from their normal to extremes. People aren't prepared, that's the point.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/world/asia/india-heat-wav...

We’re talking about a difference of less than 1 degree in 15 years. That probably doesn’t make AC a necessity.

the peaks are higher, that's when you want AC

How different are the peaks?

That was the first option, to which Parent is replying with alternative/related options.

Same thing happened in LA in the 1980s. Before that, you didn't really need air conditioning in your home and having A/C had no effect on rent. By the 1990s, having A/C would allow you to charge much higher rents, because it was much more of a necessity that people would pay extra to have.

I have been in Bucarest in April. It was hot as hell but more over was the humidity levels, totally killed me. I used AC all the way.

Might be like washing machines, which are a sort of a global prosperity indicator.

or maybe cellphones?

Ironically, this likely exacerbates warming.

It's not really an irony. It's just one more positive feedback mechanism. Humans (contra religious stories) are ecosystem participants.

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