How unprecedented was the February 2021 Texas cold snap?

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dc.citation.articleNumber64056en_US
dc.citation.issueNumber6en_US
dc.citation.journalTitleEnvironmental Research Lettersen_US
dc.citation.volumeNumber16en_US
dc.contributor.authorDoss-Gollin, Jamesen_US
dc.contributor.authorFarnham, David J.en_US
dc.contributor.authorLall, Upmanuen_US
dc.contributor.authorModi, Vijayen_US
dc.date.accessioned2021-07-08T13:45:58Zen_US
dc.date.available2021-07-08T13:45:58Zen_US
dc.date.issued2021en_US
dc.description.abstractWinter storm Uri brought severe cold to the southern United States in February 2021, causing a cascading failure of interdependent systems in Texas where infrastructure was not adequately prepared for such cold. In particular, the failure of interconnected energy systems restricted electricity supply just as demand for heating spiked, leaving millions of Texans without heat or electricity, many for several days. This motivates the question: did historical storms suggest that such temperatures were known to occur, and if so with what frequency? We compute a temperature-based proxy for heating demand and use this metric to answer the question ‘what would the aggregate demand for heating have been had historic cold snaps occurred with today’s population?’. We find that local temperatures and the inferred demand for heating per capita across the region served by the Texas Interconnection were more severe during a storm in December 1989 than during February 2021, and that cold snaps in 1951 and 1983 were nearly as severe. Given anticipated population growth, future storms may lead to even greater infrastructure failures if adaptive investments are not made. Further, electricity system managers should prepare for trends in electrification of heating to drive peak annual loads on the Texas Interconnection during severe winter storms.en_US
dc.identifier.citationDoss-Gollin, James, Farnham, David J., Lall, Upmanu, et al.. "How unprecedented was the February 2021 Texas cold snap?." <i>Environmental Research Letters,</i> 16, no. 6 (2021) IOP Publishing: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0278.en_US
dc.identifier.digitalDoss-Gollin_2021en_US
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0278en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/110996en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherIOP Publishingen_US
dc.rightsOriginal content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.en_US
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en_US
dc.titleHow unprecedented was the February 2021 Texas cold snap?en_US
dc.typeJournal articleen_US
dc.type.dcmiTexten_US
dc.type.publicationpublisher versionen_US
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