Neglecting humidity may lead to overestimated economic impacts of cooling demand

Neglecting humidity may lead to overestimated economic impacts of cooling demand | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Neglecting humidity may lead to overestimated economic impacts of cooling demand Chan Park, Yohan Choi, Shinichiro Fujimori, Tomoko Hasegawa, Kiyoshi Takahashi, and 2 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8776169/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Cooling demand projections are essential for climate adaptation and energy policy, yet many studies rely on cooling degree days (CDD) based on daily mean temperature alone, ignoring humidity and diurnal temperature variation. Human thermal comfort and building cooling needs depend strongly on moisture and peak temperatures; neglecting these factors may bias global estimates of future cooling energy use and its economic impacts. Here, we compare four CDD calculation methods that differ in whether they use dry-bulb or wet-bulb temperature and in whether they use daily mean values or daily maximum and minimum temperatures. We feed these CDD estimates into an integrated assessment model (AIM/CGE) to project cooling energy consumption and economy-wide impacts to 2100 under multiple climate scenarios. We find that methods incorporating humidity and daily temperature extremes consistently yield lower CDD growth, lower projected cooling energy use, and smaller economic impacts than the conventional temperature-only approach. Under high-forcing scenarios, comprehensive methods project cooling demand and GDP losses from cooling-related expenditure approximately 25~% to 65~% lower than standard estimates. These results suggest that neglecting humidity in cooling demand indicators may lead to overestimated economic impacts of climate change, and that updated metrics better aligned with thermal comfort can support more calibrated policy and planning. Earth and environmental sciences/Climate sciences/Climate change/Climate-change impacts Scientific community and society/Energy and society/Energy supply and demand Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Climate-change impacts Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files SupplementaryNCOMMS26009992.pdf Supplementary Materials Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8776169","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":589039107,"identity":"23cc75eb-b1b2-4a66-87ca-1b06e13a2ea6","order_by":0,"name":"Chan 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Human thermal comfort and building cooling needs depend strongly on moisture and peak temperatures; neglecting these factors may bias global estimates of future cooling energy use and its economic impacts. Here, we compare four CDD calculation methods that differ in whether they use dry-bulb or wet-bulb temperature and in whether they use daily mean values or daily maximum and minimum temperatures. We feed these CDD estimates into an integrated assessment model (AIM/CGE) to project cooling energy consumption and economy-wide impacts to 2100 under multiple climate scenarios. We find that methods incorporating humidity and daily temperature extremes consistently yield lower CDD growth, lower projected cooling energy use, and smaller economic impacts than the conventional temperature-only approach. Under high-forcing scenarios, comprehensive methods project cooling demand and GDP losses from cooling-related expenditure approximately 25~\\% to 65~\\% lower than standard estimates. These results suggest that neglecting humidity in cooling demand indicators may lead to overestimated economic impacts of climate change, and that updated metrics better aligned with thermal comfort can support more calibrated policy and planning.","manuscriptTitle":"Neglecting humidity may lead to overestimated economic impacts of cooling demand","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-02-11 03:14:50","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8776169/v1","editorialEvents":[],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature-communications","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"NCOMMS","sideBox":"Learn more about [Nature Communications](http://www.nature.com/ncomms/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"https://mts-ncomms.nature.com/","title":"Nature Communications","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"Nature Communications","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"1da17184-ba7e-4694-a22f-8f84a5b21265","owner":[],"postedDate":"February 11th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"This content is not available.","date":"2026-05-12T10:12:04+00:00","index":3,"fulltext":"This content is not available."}],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[{"id":62672857,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Climate sciences/Climate change/Climate-change impacts"},{"id":62672858,"name":"Scientific community and society/Energy and society/Energy supply and demand"},{"id":62672859,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Climate-change impacts"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-02-11T03:14:50+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-02-11 03:14:50","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8776169","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8776169","identity":"rs-8776169","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}