Title of Dissertation: ENERGY DEMAND RESPONSES TO TEMPERATURE AND IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATIC CHANGE

Climate is a major determinant of energy demand as well as the structure of the built environment. Climate change may alter energy demand and energy demand patterns. In this dissertation, I investigate the implications of climate change for energy demand by asking if energy demand sensitivities to temperature are place-specific, and if energy demand sensitivities to temperature reflect energy users ’ adaptations to prevailing climate? To answer these questions, energy demands for electricity, natural gas, and heating oil in seventeen states along the eastern seaboard of the United States are quantitatively analyzed. The states are on a north-south orientation to maximize inter-state climatic differences and presumably the degree of adaptation by energy users to climate. Unique to this dissertation is the use of an impact-adaptation assessment framework to project energy demand responses to climate change scenarios. The net impacts on energy demand are related to both the system’s sensitivity and adaptive capacity to changes in climate stimuli. In this study, a temporal analysis is developed and used to quantify the historic sensitivities of energy demands to climatic variability whil