PCLM-D-22-00090

Household energy use responses to extreme heat complete a theoretical extra-metabolic model

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Hughes,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 27 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Erin Coughlan de Perez, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please provide your detailed Financial Disclosure statement. This is published with the article. It must therefore be completed in full sentences and contain the exact wording you wish to be published.

 a. State the initials, alongside each funding source, of each author to receive each grant.

 b. If any authors received a salary from any of your funders, please state which authors and which funders.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

The topic of study is fascinating, and it is helpful to understand how energy use changes with outdoor temperature. The differences in neighborhoods is also of interest. However, I agree with Reviewer #1 that the framing of the paper is not clear, in particular why the model of thermoregulation is used. It seems to distract from the analysis in the paper, which could stand on its own. This is a suggestion ofr a very substantial re-write, according to the reviewer recommendations.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript presents an analysis of the association between outdoor temperature and household energy use. It is well-written and the data processing and analysis seem careful, robust and transparent. My main concern is that I do not understand why the study adopts a model for mamalian thermoregulation to describe an otherwise empirical, statistical relationship.

Among building scientists, the concept presented here as extra-metabolic energy use is referred to as occupant behavior and there is a vast amount of literature that describes how people respond to high or low temperature. Why not use one of these model, if any? Also, it is not surprising that energy use increases with increasing outdoor temperature - it is a natural consequence of using thermostats to control indoor temperature and is not related with what is usually considered to be thermoregulation.

I find that the modelling results are equally interesting without sqeezing the numbers into a remotely relevant theoretical model. The model does not explain the association between energy use and outdoor temperature and therefore seems unnecessary.

I therefore suggest that the manuscript presents the careful and interesting data analysis without attempting to "explain" the findings without the use of the Scholander-Irving. In my view it will make the study stand out as much more trustworthy.

A more specific comment - shouldn't household energ ymentioned in ln. 222 and 223 be kWh per month, not Watts? W refers to power, whereas kWh to energy.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript presents an interesting approach to household energy consumption estimation under extreme events. It is a novel approach and can have great impact in the future research. However, there are somethings that need to be clarified.

The sentence in the abstract “Humans have the unique ability to thermoregulate in the face of varying temperatures because of the capacity to incorporate extra-metabolic energy use in the form of renewable energy and fossil fuels to cool and heat our indoor microclimates.” should be rewritten, it is not very clear.

Page 3, line 58, the authors say “are unequivocally caused in part by climate change”. Why do you say in part when there are studies proving that global warming is the sole cause of these events (e.g. Vogel et al., 2019; https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/siberian-heatwave-of-2020-almostimpossible-without-climate-change; https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/NW-US-extreme-heat-2021-scientific-report-WWA.pdf). Please provide the references that state different causes as well.

Page 5, line 111, Did authors mean monthly maximum temperatures or mean monthly? This is quite high temperature, please elaborate.

In the introduction it would be very nice to have an outline of the manuscript, explaining what each section is about.

Page 9, lines 187-195: Could you please specify the number of stations used, and their spatial coverage?

The percentage of the missing data should be emphasised, and explained how it may affect the results.

Page 9, line 202: Only 37.7, under different temperatures and relative humidity levels the calculated Heat Index can be classified as “extreme caution” or ‘danger”. Is there any other reason for this values of Tmean?

Page 10 line 222: there is a closed bracket after 106, please check.

Page 12, line 248: NUA, MOV, AJO, TRC, MOR, and NVP I do not recall you using the abreviations before. Please explain.

Page 14: the discussion section: Authors highlighted the novelty of their approach but lack the discussion and comparison with previous studies. The discussion needs to be braden to include similar studies to show how these novelties can improve the household energy estimates in different climate zones.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PCLM-D-22-00090R1

Household energy use response to extreme heat evaluated with a biophysical model of temperature regulation

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Hughes,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

EDITOR: Please insert comments here and delete this placeholder text when finished. Be sure to:

• Indicate which changes you require for acceptance versus which changes you recommend
• Address any conflicts between the reviews so that it's clear which advice the authors should follow
• Provide specific feedback from your evaluation of the manuscript

Please ensure that your decision is justified on PLOS Climate’s publication criteria and not, for example, on novelty or perceived impact.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 07 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Ahmed Kenawy, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Reviewer#1:

The manuscript can be accepted for publication.

Reviewer#2:

In general, the authors have addressed the reviewers' comments quite well. I only have some minor comments, see below:

#Figure 1: what is the unit for the heat production (rate) for the animal and the cities? For the human, why the TNZ is so broad? Is it due to the clothing adjustment?

#Title: this study uses Arizona as a case study for energy use analysis and modelling and this should be highlighted in the title.

#Abbreviations: please kindly list all abbreviations.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors have done a nice job to modify the manuscript. However, I believe that the responses to some of my comments are rather general and do not really address the issue that was raised. We probably come from different fields with different views and backgrounds, so I will not start a longer discussion of the novelty and contribtution to the state-of-the-art of this otherwise well conducted study. I just want to point out that some of the findings may be considered trivial among building scientists working with occupant behavior.

Reviewer #3: In general, the authors have addressed the reviewers' comments quite well. I only have some minor comments, see below:

#Figure 1: what is the unit for the heat production (rate) for the animal and the cities? For the human, why the TNZ is so broad? Is it due to the clothing adjustment?

#Title: this study uses Arizona as a case study for energy use analysis and modelling and this should be highlighted in the title.

#Abbreviations: please kindly list all abbreviations.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #3: Yes: Faming Wang

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Household energy use response to extreme heat evaluated with a biophysical model of temperature regulation: An Arizona case study

PCLM-D-22-00090R2

Dear Ms. Hughes,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Household energy use response to extreme heat evaluated with a biophysical model of temperature regulation: An Arizona case study' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team. 

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact climate@plos.org.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Ahmed Kenawy, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #3: I am happy with the revisions made by the authors.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #3: Yes: Faming Wang

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