5 ms·

Having lived in Dubai for the last 6 years - believe me there is nothing dry about the summer heat here. 45c and over 90% humidity regularly.

by djd20 7y ago

Filligree 7y ago
That would imply a wet-bulb temperature of over 40 C, which shouldn't be survivable. Does everyone spend all their time indoors? What if there's a power outage?
- dleslie 7y ago
  > What if there's a power outage? And this is why the existence of Dubai is a testament to the hubris of humanity.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Yeah god forbid a bunch of people who happened to be born in the desert want to enjoy the fruits of civiliation.
    - ulfw 7y ago
      They enjoy it so much, they invite millions to their homes to enjoy it together! (The population is composed of just 15% native residents, with the remaining 85% being composed of expatriates, see http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/dubai-population/ http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/dubai-populati...)
    - perfmode 7y ago
      If Las Vegas is the platonic fruit of civilization, then yeah!
  - tareqak 7y ago
    Aren't there cities in Texas that similarly hot and humid? To my recollection, contemporary architecture and city planning throughout Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the UAE are all derived from that of Texas.
    - technofiend 7y ago
      You did say contemporary which is certainly after when my house was designed, but even my 1930s-era house in Houston, TX was designed for the heat. In fact at least contemporary residential has gone the way of highly insulated homes meant to keep heat and moisture out and breathe as little as possible. Which works 99% of the time until a hurricane takes out power and air conditioning with it. Then they are sweaty, hellish boxes. Houston didn't really take off until the invention of air conditioning but even when my house was built people engineered around it. When first purchased my house had a number of shade trees because blocking sunlight is extremely effective. Every room with the exception of one bathroom has multiple screen windows to facilitate natural airflow through the house. That one bathroom still has two doors and a window to help with air movement. In addition there is a whole house fan that draws air from throughout the house to the attic. This helps both exchange air when people want air movement which is cooling and also helps move heat out of the attic which is coming from a blazing hot roof. The attic itself is nearly the same height as the floor below it and each end of the attic has huge slatted exhaust ports. They are easily four feet wide and seven or eight feet tall. They are needed because the whole house fan can draw hard enough to break a window, or so I've been told. Although the house was designed to breathe and move air because it was all they could do to combat the heat these days I shut all the windows and run the air conditioner. I may be a fan of the architecture but I'm not a fan of the lifestyle. My friends in sealed houses have much lower energy bills, but if my power fails I can at least open the windows.
- simias 7y ago
  You'd have to do it the old way, find habitations with think walls, ventilate during the night and keep the air relatively cool during the day. That's mostly how we still do it in many parts of southern Europe where were AC still isn't very popular in individual homes. Of course Dubai's skyscrapers wouldn't be very well suited to this method so yeah, they'd have a problem in this situation. I've been there during summer and merely standing outside is very tough on the system. Of course as a wealthy European that was only a mild inconvenience as you move between the overcooled mall and the SUV. Now if you're one of these modern slave workers coming from poorer countries and tasked with digging a ditch outside or something like that, it's probably a different story...
  - CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
    On that topic I found this talk about passive ventilation at the Royal Institution absolutely fascinating https://youtu.be/zXPYPkgd-JQ https://youtu.be/zXPYPkgd-JQ
- bayareanative 7y ago
  Paul Beckwith did a video about Iran and other areas where temperatures exceeded survivable wet-bulb levels. There is an upper-limit based on thermodynamics. https://kevinhesterdotlive.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/heat-index.jpg https://kevinhesterdotlive.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/heat-... Yes, you must remain indoors in non-evaporative air-conditioning, dehumidification or near sources of cool water, or you die. Power outages? People can die.
  - jefftk 7y ago
    > you must remain indoors in non-evaporative air-conditioning, dehumidification or near sources of cool water You can also have high-mass buildings that you shut up during the day and ventilate over night. This is the traditional approach, and works well if the night temperature is a lot lower than the day.
- axaxs 7y ago
  Is there a way to semi accurately calculate wet bulb temperature based only on temperature and humidity? I tried searching this before, and it gave kinda vague formulas with dewpoints...
  - trickstra 7y ago
    At 100% relative humidity the wet-bulb temperature will be equal to air temperature. So it depends if 90% humidity is semi-accurate enough for you.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    You wrap a wet piece of cloth around your thermometer.
apta 7y ago
Dubai (and most of the other Emirates) are different because they're on the coast. If you go inland (e.g. AlAin or something I believe) then humidity should go down.
- ska 7y ago
  I've never been there specifically, but typically the humidity goes down but the temperature goes up. Sometimes way up.
  - apta 7y ago
    And at night it should go down quite a bit :)
    - ska 7y ago
      True! Unlike the humid coast where 12 noon and 12 midnight often aren't that much different.

Having lived in Dubai for the last 6 years - believe me there is nothing dry about the summer heat here. 45c and over 90% humidity regularly.

by djd20 7y ago

Having lived in Dubai for the last 6 years - believe me there is nothing dry about the summer heat here. 45c and over 90% humidity regularly.

Filligree 7y ago

That would imply a wet-bulb temperature of over 40 C, which shouldn't be survivable. Does everyone spend all their time indoors? What if there's a power outage?

dleslie 7y ago
> What if there's a power outage? And this is why the existence of Dubai is a testament to the hubris of humanity.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Yeah god forbid a bunch of people who happened to be born in the desert want to enjoy the fruits of civiliation.
  - ulfw 7y ago
    They enjoy it so much, they invite millions to their homes to enjoy it together! (The population is composed of just 15% native residents, with the remaining 85% being composed of expatriates, see http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/dubai-population/ http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/dubai-populati...)
  - perfmode 7y ago
    If Las Vegas is the platonic fruit of civilization, then yeah!
- tareqak 7y ago
  Aren't there cities in Texas that similarly hot and humid? To my recollection, contemporary architecture and city planning throughout Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the UAE are all derived from that of Texas.
  - technofiend 7y ago
    You did say contemporary which is certainly after when my house was designed, but even my 1930s-era house in Houston, TX was designed for the heat. In fact at least contemporary residential has gone the way of highly insulated homes meant to keep heat and moisture out and breathe as little as possible. Which works 99% of the time until a hurricane takes out power and air conditioning with it. Then they are sweaty, hellish boxes. Houston didn't really take off until the invention of air conditioning but even when my house was built people engineered around it. When first purchased my house had a number of shade trees because blocking sunlight is extremely effective. Every room with the exception of one bathroom has multiple screen windows to facilitate natural airflow through the house. That one bathroom still has two doors and a window to help with air movement. In addition there is a whole house fan that draws air from throughout the house to the attic. This helps both exchange air when people want air movement which is cooling and also helps move heat out of the attic which is coming from a blazing hot roof. The attic itself is nearly the same height as the floor below it and each end of the attic has huge slatted exhaust ports. They are easily four feet wide and seven or eight feet tall. They are needed because the whole house fan can draw hard enough to break a window, or so I've been told. Although the house was designed to breathe and move air because it was all they could do to combat the heat these days I shut all the windows and run the air conditioner. I may be a fan of the architecture but I'm not a fan of the lifestyle. My friends in sealed houses have much lower energy bills, but if my power fails I can at least open the windows.
simias 7y ago
You'd have to do it the old way, find habitations with think walls, ventilate during the night and keep the air relatively cool during the day. That's mostly how we still do it in many parts of southern Europe where were AC still isn't very popular in individual homes. Of course Dubai's skyscrapers wouldn't be very well suited to this method so yeah, they'd have a problem in this situation. I've been there during summer and merely standing outside is very tough on the system. Of course as a wealthy European that was only a mild inconvenience as you move between the overcooled mall and the SUV. Now if you're one of these modern slave workers coming from poorer countries and tasked with digging a ditch outside or something like that, it's probably a different story...
- CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
  On that topic I found this talk about passive ventilation at the Royal Institution absolutely fascinating https://youtu.be/zXPYPkgd-JQ https://youtu.be/zXPYPkgd-JQ
bayareanative 7y ago
Paul Beckwith did a video about Iran and other areas where temperatures exceeded survivable wet-bulb levels. There is an upper-limit based on thermodynamics. https://kevinhesterdotlive.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/heat-index.jpg https://kevinhesterdotlive.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/heat-... Yes, you must remain indoors in non-evaporative air-conditioning, dehumidification or near sources of cool water, or you die. Power outages? People can die.
- jefftk 7y ago
  > you must remain indoors in non-evaporative air-conditioning, dehumidification or near sources of cool water You can also have high-mass buildings that you shut up during the day and ventilate over night. This is the traditional approach, and works well if the night temperature is a lot lower than the day.
axaxs 7y ago
Is there a way to semi accurately calculate wet bulb temperature based only on temperature and humidity? I tried searching this before, and it gave kinda vague formulas with dewpoints...
- trickstra 7y ago
  At 100% relative humidity the wet-bulb temperature will be equal to air temperature. So it depends if 90% humidity is semi-accurate enough for you.
- imtringued 7y ago
  You wrap a wet piece of cloth around your thermometer.

apta 7y ago

Dubai (and most of the other Emirates) are different because they're on the coast. If you go inland (e.g. AlAin or something I believe) then humidity should go down.

ska 7y ago
I've never been there specifically, but typically the humidity goes down but the temperature goes up. Sometimes way up.
- apta 7y ago
  And at night it should go down quite a bit :)
  - ska 7y ago
    True! Unlike the humid coast where 12 noon and 12 midnight often aren't that much different.