Is Phoenix livable without air conditioning? (Prescott: 2013, hotels, luxury)

[PCBONEZ]

Originally Posted by Potential_Landlord

I think what helped Phoenix' explosive growth post WWII was car air conditioning. Before the heat island effect and even now, you can probably deal with the heat in your place better than driving 45 minutes in the sun on a summer afternoon. Also judging from our more recent history since 1870, the settlers generally preferred higher elevations in places like Prescott or Flagstaff over the desert valleys, with exceptions like Mesa.

From people I've talked to that have been here their whole life Phoenix was still small in the 70's and didn't really take off until the late 70's or 80's.
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I think possibly Palo Verde and the availability of cheap electricity had something to do with when the growth happened too.
(Have to power all those AC units..)
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The Indians began irrigating this area along the rivers about 2000 years ago for agriculture and that's why people came into the valley way back when.
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[AZGal25]

Originally Posted by PCBONEZ

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Something you weather chasers seem to forget when you do these studies is this little thing called Watts.
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EVERY electrical device be it battery or line powered dissipates heat, and we call it Watts.
A cell phone or pager that is on is dissipating heat even if not in use.
That cooking timer with a battery stuck to you fridge is dissipating heat.
So is that clock in your car.
And then there's the more obvious things like the fridge, coffee pot, things with motors......
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Those little things might be small by themselves but when you take millions (probably billions) and put them into a small area (like a city) it's going to add up.
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So you guys do your study and all the math with assumptions and derived correction factors and your math balances out and leads you to some conclusion and you derive theories to explain it.
BUT, you ignored Watts..
.. So your math didn't -really- balance out,, thus your conclusion and the theories derived from it are erroneous..
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As to the major reason cities are hotter, that's easy to answer.
Wait till about mid July and JUST when the sun goes down walk barefoot down your driveway and onto the the street.
You'll figure it out in no time..
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100 years ago not every road was paved and we didn't build things so dense.
When you cover more ground with concrete in the same space it's no mystery that things stay hotter.
Just not.
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Also I don't think that 50-100 years ago so many people choose gravel over just dirt or grass.
The rock that gravel came from was obviously here, but it was buried somewhere and we brought it to the surface.
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I don't see the relevance of this. Heat from electrical appliances would impact all weather, not just nighttime temperature. In fact, if it were going to impact temperatures at all, it would have a greater impact on daytime temperature, since that is when most electricity is used. So, if Watts were the culprit whatever rise you see in nighttime temperatures would also be observed in daytime temperatures. And, in fact, daytime temperatures would actually see a higher rise than nighttime temperatures.

You're right about concrete being a factor, but it's not the driveways so much as the skyscrapers with concrete and black tar roofs.

[PCBONEZ]

Originally Posted by Potential_Landlord

Coming from Europe, the size of the city of Phoenix is unbelievably big. It swallows all of Germany's 1+ million cities combined easily as it does London or Paris. Phoenix is REALLY big. This is a very different ballpark here.

Phoenix is currently the 6th largest city (by population) in the US.
That has only happened in the last 50 years or so and it seems much of the rest of the country missed it and hasn't noticed that we grew muscles yet.
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[PCBONEZ]

Originally Posted by AZGal25

I don't see the relevance of this. Heat from electrical appliances would impact all weather, not just nighttime temperature. In fact, if it were going to impact temperatures at all, it would have a greater impact on daytime temperature, since that is when most electricity is used. So, if Watts were the culprit whatever rise you see in nighttime temperatures would also be observed in daytime temperatures. And, in fact, daytime temperatures would actually see a higher rise than nighttime temperatures.

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Because the discussion (specifically the study) that was in response to was pertaining to the difference in heat emissions between heavily populated and lightly or unpopulated land.
Obviously there isn't much electricity being used where there are no people.
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Originally Posted by AZGal25

You're right about concrete being a factor, but it's not the driveways so much as the skyscrapers with concrete and black tar roofs.

I wasn't going to suggest anyone walk barefoot up a skyscraper or on a roof at night.
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For it's size Phoenix has very few skyscrapers. We went 'out', not 'up'.
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[AZGal25]

I did read the post. The poster said he rode along with researchers who were studying the heat island effect and that they found that even in the evening, when the rest of the area had cooled down, there were still columns of heat coming up from the city. If Watts were the culprit, the daytime temperatures of the city would be higher than the surrounding areas, as well.

[PCBONEZ]

Originally Posted by Ritchie_az

Just as much as there may be an "urban heat" there is an "agriculteral cooling" especially when the fields are being irrigated.

YES.
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Unfortunately bringing ground water to the surface adds to the atmospheric water vapor inventory and that creates more greenhouse effect.
When you have more water vapor 'up there', more rays get reflected back to the planet. = More heat.
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I suspect that has a LOT more to do with the temps going up in general than CO2 ever did.
And:
The climate models basically don't take it (changing atmospheric water vapor inventory) into account..
(They assume an average and hold it constant because it's too difficult to calculate.)
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I read an interview with one of the people that designs computerized climate models (one of which is used by the UN) and according to him, we (man) don't even HAVE a computer powerful enough to accurately account for all of the climatic effects of water and water vapor yet.
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[PCBONEZ]

Originally Posted by AZGal25

If Watts were the culprit, the daytime temperatures of the city would be higher than the surrounding areas, as well.

They are higher than what they would be if you measured THE SAME AREA with and without population effects.
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Measuring the surrounding area is an approximation. Best we can do, but not all that accurate.
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There are various things like the Laws or Physics and Thermodynamics (particularly the Law of Conservation of Energy) that say it's not even possible for the heat emission to not go up when you are using electricity.
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You have a system (a plot of land), you inject energy (electricity) into it and convert the energy to heat.
Assuming nothing else in the system changes, the heat emission cannot stay the same, nor will it go down, as compared to what existed without the electricity being used.
- Thus is you are using electricity the heat emissions will ALWAYS be more than if you weren't.
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[blue bird]

It can be if you open all the window and keep the fan running and soak yourselves several times a day. Sleep outside at night and get inside by 7:30 and you'll do just fine no matter how hot it gets.

[ragnarkar]

By "without air conditioning", do you also mean no evaporative cooling?

[observer53]

Originally Posted by ragnarkar

By "without air conditioning", do you also mean no evaporative cooling?

Since the OP hasn't been here in about 2 years, we may never know what the original question referred to. .