The answer to the question is correlated with party affiliation as Pew reports in their article Wide partisan divide on whether voting is a fundamental right or a privilege with responsibilities by Vianney Gomez and Carroll Doherty (7/22/2021) as their chart here shows. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents overwhelmingly say voting …
Read More »What is the connection between heat and electricity use?
From the eia article June heat wave in the Northwest United States resulted in more demand for electricity by Johnathan DeVilbiss and Mark Morey (7/21/2021): A heat wave in the Northwest United States in late June led to more regional demand for electricity. During periods of high temperatures, electricity demand increases as …
Read More »How Low is Lake Mead?
The Bureau of Reclamation posts the end of month elevation for Lake Mead dating back to 1935. I created the graph of minimum yearly end of month elevation starting in 1940 since Hoover Dam was only created in 1935. Here is the R code to create the graph including importing …
Read More »How hot was June 2021?
From NOAA’s Global Climate Report – June 2021: The June 2021 global surface temperature was the fifth highest for June in the 142-year record at 0.88°C (1.58°F) above the 20th century average. Only Junes of 2015 (fourth warmest), 2016 (second warmest), 2019 (warmest), and 2020 (third warmest) were warmer and …
Read More »What is the Vegetative Health Index?
From the NOAA STAR Center for Satellite Applications and Research page: Global and Regional Vegetation Health (VH) is a NOAA/NESDIS system estimating vegetation health, moisture condition, thermal condition and their products. It contains Vegetation Health Indices (VHI) derived from the radiance observed by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) …
Read More »How hot was the Pacific Northwest?
Berkeley Earth summarizes the recent heatwave in the Pacific Northwest in the article The Pacific Northwest Heatwave in Context (7/6/2021). The graph by Dr. Robert Rohde copied here is striking and really says all that needs to be said. This is a graph that everyone should have to study and …
Read More »Why is life expectancy lower in the U.S.?
As a follow up to the Tuesday post, the Our World in Data article Why is life expectancy in the U.S. lower than other rich countries by Max Roser provides data on categories that contribute to the lower U.S. life expectancy. The article explores eight categories: Smoking, Obesity, Homicides (graph …
Read More »How does life expectancy in the U.S. compare to other countries?
Our World in Data has the answer and more on their page Why is life expectancy in the U.S. lower than in other rich countries? In the US health spending per capita is up to four times higher, yet life expectancy is lower than in all of these countries. The …
Read More »How much debt do students have by race?
The EducationalData.org post Student Loan Debt by Race by Melanie Hanson (6/9/21) has three excellent graphs such as the one copied here. It may not be surprising that Asians have the least debt given Asians have the highest income, but Hispanic and Latino debt is almost identical to White and …
Read More »What are stripes again?
About a year ago I posted this about stripes: The image here from ShowYourStripes has a vertical strip representing global average temperature anomalies from 1850 to 2019 where darker blue is cooler and darker red is warmer. This graphic style, warming stripes, is credited to Ed Hawkins. The ShowYourStripes page has similar …
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