A degree day is a measure of heating or cooling. Totalized degree days from an appropriate starting date are used to plan the planting of crops and management of pests and pest control timing. Weekly or monthly degree-day figures may also be used within an energy monitoring and targeting scheme to monitor the heating and cooling costs of climate controlled buildings, while annual figures can be used for estimating future costs.
A degree day is computed as the integral of a function of time that generally varies with temperature. The function is truncated to upper and lower limits that vary by organism, or to limits that are appropriate for climate control. The function can be estimated or measured by one of the following methods, in each case by reference to a chosen base temperature:
- frequent measurements and continuously integrating the temperature deficit or excess;
- Treating each day's temperature profile as a sine wave with amplitude equal to the day's temperature variation, measured from max and min, and totalling the daily results;
- As above, but calculating the daily difference between mean temperature and base temperature;
- As previous, but with modified formulae on days when the max and min straddle the base temperature.
A zero degree-day in energy monitoring and targeting is when either heating or cooling consumption is at a minimum, which is useful with power utility companies in predicting seasonal low points in energy demand.
Famous quotes containing the words degree and/or day:
“And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another...”
—Bible: New Testament, 2 Corinthians 3:18.
“The day was ending at it was the hour of which I do not want to speak, the hour without a name, when the sounds of evening ascended from all the floors of the prison in a procession of silence.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)