In the Heat of the Night

Long-term CED readers know about weather and bad behavior. Here we have an update. Auliciems and DiBartolo (1995) report that calling the cops about domestic violence and daily maximum temperature are correlated (see above). Not much new there! However Auliciems and DiBartolo put all sorts of weather variables in to their stats-pac and set it spinning. Calls were also high when the minimum temperatures were high. That being true a fine correlation was also observed with wet bulb temperature. So, wet warm air is implicated. Relative humidity didn't mean much. On the more sinister side, low pressure, rain and poor visibility set the precinct phones ringing. All this is not a seasonal correlation masquerading as a instantaneous correlation. The data is from Brisbane in tropical Australia.

Some years ago LeBeau and Corcoran (1990) doing their thing with domestic violence calls in Chicago reported that the police were pressed into service more on the passage of warm front than with the passage of cold fronts. When I was doing my meteorology at the University of Wisconsin (circa 1965) we learned that checkouts from the public library favored fiction following a warm front passage and non-fiction when cold fronts zipped by. Also SAT scores were reported to be higher on cold-front days than warm-front days (sorry my only citation here is R. A. Bryson in the classroom).

It would be a mistake to conclude that reading fiction or doing poorly on SAT exams have any causal connection at all to domestic violence. Likewise, conclusion jumping relative nailing the SAT or finishing Stephen Hawkings latest book with a smile of satisfaction would be unwise as well. If A is correlated with B and C is correlated with D, A and D do not have to be correlated. An even if there were a correlation between A and D it does not tell us of causality. It is probable that at times of stress in our lives that we just don't need a weather stress on top of it all.

Auliciems, A. and L. DiBartolo. 1995. Domestic violence in a subtropical environment: police calls and weather in Brisbane. Int. J. of Biometeorol. 39:34-39.

Hayden, B. P. 1994. NSF to LTER: Mix it up with the Social Scientists. CED Vol. 4, No. 3.

Hayden, B. P. 1994. The Thermal Theory of Bean-Balls. CED Vol. 4, No. 3.

LeBeau, J. L. and W. T. Corcoran. 1990. Changes in calls for police service with changes in routine activities and the arrival and passage of weather fronts. J. Wantit. Criminol. 6:269-291.