27 ms·

The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance (2020)

• sen 5y ago
  I’ve been saying for years now that we’ll most probably see a time in our lifetime where you need to wear a (light) space-suit style thing to go outside in some seasons. Insulated and actively heated/cooled, possible with air filtration for pollution/smoke/etc. There’s already been some companies playing with the idea as a prototype/art/statement level but I truly think it’s inevitable that it becomes more common.
  • mprovost 5y ago
    The spice must flow...
• boplicity 5y ago
  Kim Stanley Robinson's recent book The Ministry For the Future starts with a very disturbing scenario: A heatwave with a "web bulb" temperature of 35 Celsius. It turns out, in those temperatures, even young and healthy people can't survive. Combined with power outages, as happens in the book, everyone living under such a heat wave will likely die. It's looking increasingly likely that such heatwaves are possible in the future, and possibly quite deadly. This could result in the mass deaths of many people, especially in poor tropical countries that don't have a stable infrastructure to cool most people during such a heatwave. I hope a mass death event from a "web bulb" 35C heatwave never happens, but I'm losing hope, especially with the increasing global temperatures, and the very lackluster progress being made on carbon output.
  • newbamboo 5y ago
    I think we know based on the science we’re not going to see a stabilization in temperatures for at least 30 years under the best scenarios. We should focus on ways to save these lives. Solar powered swamp coolers is what is I’m thinking about. They require water however and that’s going to be as big of a problem as heat. Already is in many places.
    • saeranv 5y ago
      Swamp coolers cool based on evaporative cooling: water evaporating into dry air reduces the (dry bulb) temperature of the air. So with high wet bulb temperatures indicating air is already saturated with moisture, the swamp cooler won't work.
      • newbamboo 5y ago
        Dehumidifiers are a thing. I presume that having water and electricity is a bigger problem for most people, but I’d love to be educated more on the problem, if you have links or literature.
        • wtallis 5y ago
          Dehumidifiers are air conditioners that put the heat back in the air they treat instead of dumping it outside. Your electricity would be better spent operating a real air conditioner.
          • hasmanean 5y ago
            Or you could use an Einstein-Szilard (aka absorption) refrigerator that works without electricity. It’s driven by heat. It uses 3 gases (butane, ammonia and water.) It has no moving parts so it’s safe. Someone could make a “Einstein dehumidifier” using 19th century technology and roll it out across the world. If embedded in buildings it could cool them constantly with no electricity required.
        • toast0 5y ago
          (Commercially available) Dehumidifiers are basically small air conditioners with both the hot and cold side in the same room. You can't run them without electricity, and if you can run a dehumidifier, you may as well dump the heat outdoors instead and cool and dehumidify your space.
        • vidarh 5y ago
          Yes, but combining a swamp cooler and a dehumidifier is most of the way there to a modern AC unit, both in concept and electricity need. Most modern ACs in fact dehumidify and cool in one step with a compressor and then use the collected water to help carry heat away from the compressor by letting the water evaporate into the exhaust to save power (it's why you rarely have to empty water from modern dehumidifying ACs).
  • rudedogg 5y ago
    Little pedantic, but you meant "Wet-bulb" temperature (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Temperature_reading_of_wet-bulb_thermometer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Temperatu...). I only know from owning a swamp cooler.
    • ksaj 5y ago
      It is worth correcting, because I think most people haven't heard of wet-bulb, just as the methods and formulas that give us humidex "feels-like" temperatures aren't common knowledge. A lot of ways we measure and describe the human experience of humidity and temperature are not standardized from location to location, so the non-local methods and terminology can be arcane for anyone who isn't a meteorologist.
      • midnightGhost 5y ago
        I never heard of wet-bulb temp until carrot weather included it in a recent update.
    • snovv_crash 5y ago
      Isn't it basically the same as the dew point temperature? I believe a lot more people are familiar with that.
      • kubanczyk 5y ago
        Just looking at the graphs, dew point temperature tends to be a bit lower than the wet bulb temperature (when humidity is equal).
      • formerly_proven 5y ago
        No, dew point is the temperature of an object on which air will start to condensate (because cooling the given air to the dew point lets relative humidity rise above 100 %, i.e. condensation). Wet-bulb temperature is the lowest temperature an object can reach through evaporative cooling (i.e. humans). The two are the same only if relative humidity is 100 %: 100 % relative humidity means that if the air cools at all, it will condensate; so the air temperature is the dew point. 100 % relative humidity also means that water cannot evaporate, as the air is already saturated with water, so the wet bulb temperature is also the same as the air temperature.
  • lugged 5y ago
    We already see 35c wet bulb temps in parts of India. It's deadly.
  • Causality1 5y ago
    I wonder how practical it would be to sink 30 foot deep concrete tube shelters with a ladder and a lid. They could serve as emergency daytime shelters and someone could climb out at night to search for a location with working power or cooler weather.
    • rtkwe 5y ago
      There'll be issues keeping that cool and the air fresh putting enough people into them. Also some of the most endangered places have huge populations that would make sinking enough shelters difficult. Depending on the soil composition that might be a short term solution too. The soil surrounding the London Underground is particularly bad for this and it's estimated that 80% of the heat ever generated in the Underground is still there in the walls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQo6_GkITe0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQo6_GkITe0
    • abraae 5y ago
      Not practical on any Pacific island sitting just above sea level.
      • gruez 5y ago
        Sit in the water instead? The ocean water tends to be cooler than the air due to oceanic currents.
        • abraae 5y ago
          Excellent point. Woods not seen for interfering trees.
    • wildpeaks 5y ago
      If mankind has to start living at night because daytime is too hot, at least night owls will no longer have to shorten their life expectancy to fit into a daytime schedule.
      • russellbeattie 5y ago
  • john_yaya 5y ago
    As an aside, would you recommend that book?
    • sjf 5y ago
      Yes... But the first chapter the OP is talking about is truly horrifying, I honestly wish I hadn't read it. His other book New York 2041 also deals with climate change and is less traumatizing.
      • kristofferR 5y ago
        Yeah, there's so much unavoidable negativity around, so when I have the chance to choose I'd rather focus on positive things and read/consume things that make me happier instead of depressed. Especially in terms of climate change. I try to live as green as I can and I vote for a climate focused party, other than that there's not much I can do as an individual. Reading about how bad things may become doesn't help me one bit.
        • scrollaway 5y ago
          Something else you can do as an individual is teach others about certain physics concepts that are massively misunderstood such as how air conditioning and heat pumps work. Ask a layman and most of them will tel you a fridge just “creates cold” or something and don’t understand why leaving the fridge door open is not a way to cool your room. Having people understand these concepts is critical so they can better reason about climate change, climate policies, make better and greener decisions etc.
  • rvn1045 5y ago
    A lot of new technology could potentially solve this problem. There are certain types of roofs being installed called cool roofs that reflect heat and don’t absorb it that keeps the inside of building a little cooler.
    • blueblisters 5y ago
      Radiative cooling roofs, like those from sky cool systems actually cool your house during the day. I'm not sure how cost effective those are but the technology seems to be very promising.
      • hoseja 5y ago
        Those radiate through the atmospheric microwave window, right?
        • tullianus 5y ago
          Yep! Looks like the authors of the first paper I read on it (glass microspheres in silver-backed clear plastic film) are finally starting to commercialize it too... http://radi-cool.com/technologies/ http://radi-cool.com/technologies/
    • spikels 5y ago
      Also air conditioning
    • Sharlin 5y ago
      For people who can afford new technology. For hundreds of millions to billions of people that's not an option.
  • princeb 5y ago
    i probably have a comment somewhere recently, but singapore is already in WBT >35 conditions in the day. it eases to around 30 at night or when rain falls. as long as power is running, it's actually fine in this country, but that's because we've designed our living space around the heat. it is entirely possible to never be exposed to the sun in a normal day in the life of a working resident here if you stay in the right neighbourhood, and this includes the daily commute, hobbies, physical activity, going out for drinks etc. more and more of the country is being built underground and more and more of our air is becoming conditioned. this is the arcology of the future and it is somewhat pleasant. edit: actually i think our infrastructure was built around protecting us from the harsh and unpredictable tropical thunderstorms and the protection from heat turned out to be a nice bonus.
    • nradov 5y ago
      Lack of sun exposure can cause hypovitaminosis D, which is a known risk factor for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. It also impacts nitric oxide production which is a factor in cardiovascular system health. Supplements can mitigate the problems to an extent but are inferior to natural sun exposure. And before anyone brings up skin cancer, there is no reliable evidence that brief daily sun exposure increases all cause mortality.
      • losteric 5y ago
        > Supplements can mitigate the problems to an extent but are inferior to natural sun exposure. Inferior how?
        • akiselev 5y ago
          Supplements for fat soluble nutrients like vitamin D generally have poor bioavailability unless used with specialized emulsifiers for insoluble compounds that aren't widely used [1]. The body has a hard time buffering and storing the excess, which it can't filter out through the kidneys. It's like fast acting insulin versus insulin produced by a functioning pancreas - it's going to keep someone alive but it's not ideal for the body long term. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6631968/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6631968/
  • zabatuvajdka 5y ago
    If there’s a heat wave and drought the only way is to dig tunnels and build cities underground. Water can be imported from the ocean (rising sea levels) and desalinated using solar/thermal power above ground and feed an aquifer!
    • fencepost 5y ago
      On a purely technical basis that may seem reasonable. On a "we're talking about human beings here" basis what do you do about all the people who feel that the selection and admission process was corrupt and that they've been robbed of their chance at safety? Do you expect them to meekly acquiesce?
      • 14 5y ago
        I imagine once the first big wave where a nation hits the wetbulb temperature and there is a mass die off you will see panic in surrounding nations and they will scramble to a border. What will nations do with millions of people knocking at the fence wanting in? Uncertain times for sure.
        • burntoutfire 5y ago
          I imagine this happening only in the least well-run countries. In any country with a functioning military, they'll probably organize a mass operation of moving people into temporary refugee camps in cooler areas of the country or into caves, underground structures etc. For people who won't be moved, they'll provide food and water for them so that people don't need to leave their hiding places during the day. (Also, I suspect that, after first major killer heat wave hits an area, people will have their own contingency strategies - be it digging a cellar for themselves to stay in, move to relatives in cooler areas for the duration etc.). However, I'm not sure if for example India is organized enough to pull this off, given their absolutely massive population.
          • nradov 5y ago
            The countries that will be most affected generally don't have well-run militaries either. We're talking about places like Bangladesh and El Salvador.
  • chrisco255 5y ago
    "The study — published in the British journal The Lancet — analyzed data on more than 74 million deaths in 13 countries between 1985 and 2012. Of those, 5.4 million deaths were related to cold, while 311,000 were related to heat." Study: Cold kills 20 times more people than heat https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weather-deaths/27657269/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weath...
    • mrow84 5y ago
      Do you think that having more extreme weather events will reduce the number of weather related deaths, or increase them?
      • chrisco255 5y ago
        Deaths from natural disasters are at or near civilizational all time lows on a fractional basis of the population, see quote below. This trend in lower deaths should continue. It is not clear to me that we are experiencing more extreme weather events than 100 years ago. We haven't had anything like the Dust Bowl (1930s) or the Great Chinese Famine that killed 45 million (https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/great-chinese-famine/ https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/great-chinese-fam...) or the Chinese Famine of 1907 that killed 25 million (https://www.bartleby.com/essay/The-Deadly-Famine-And-The-1907-Chinese-P3CZ9D5YLJXQ https://www.bartleby.com/essay/The-Deadly-Famine-And-The-190...). Or the Bengal famine or the Vietnamese famine of the 40s. Or the Yangtze flood of 1931 that killed 2 million. Or the Bhola cyclone of 1970 that killed 500K (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Bhola_cyclone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Bhola_cyclone) "What we see is that in the early-to-mid 20th century, the annual death toll from disasters was high, often reaching over one million per year. In recent decades we have seen a substantial decline in deaths. In most years fewer than 20,000 die (and in the most recent decade, this has often been less than 10,000). Even in peak years with high-impact events, the death toll has not exceeded 500,000 since the mid-1960s. This decline is even more impressive when we consider the rate of population growth over this period. When we correct for population – showing this data in terms of death rates (measured per 100,000 people) – we see an even greater decline over the past century. This chart can be viewed here." https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters
  • joshuakelly 5y ago
    This feels like one of those prescient HN comments that are cited in the future. IDK, just... replying to say I was a witness too.
  • shreyshnaccount 5y ago
    oh OK, so no one will do anything about it and it's probably gonna happen and when it does it will be. out of the news cycle in a few days. noted.
  • masklinn 5y ago
    > It turns out, in those temperatures, even young and healthy people can't survive. Of note: that’s literal, even doing nothing and sitting in front of a fan you can’t cool down. And do one of the issues 35 WBT “hides” is that any activity lowers the heat stress threshold. Sugarcane workers are already dying due to heat stress today, and have been for a while. There’s been an “epidemic” of “kidney disease” in central american sugarcane fields for a decade now, with young men showing rates of kidney diseases 15x the norm.
    • arp242 5y ago
      According to Wikipedia[1]: "Even heat-adapted people cannot carry out normal outdoor activities past a wet-bulb temperature of 32°C (90°F), equivalent to a heat index of 55°C (130°F). The theoretical limit to human survival for more than a few hours in the shade, even with unlimited water, is 35°C (95°F) – theoretically equivalent to a heat index of 70°C (160°F), though the heat index does not go that high." So the practical limit is indeed much lower than 35°C; that's the limit at which you're basically going to fall over and die. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature
    • elchief 5y ago
      And people START dying, en masse, at 28C wet bulb (see chicago and vancouver heat waves)
      • djrogers 5y ago
        > en masse I'm not sure that phrase means what you think it means... Yes, there were ~600 tragic deaths in BC from the heat dome, but en masse means 'as a whole' or 'as a group', and a .012% death rate does not really qualify there.
        • quantum_solanum 5y ago
          shut the fuck up
        • Zenbit_UX 5y ago
  • suzzer99 5y ago
    If the water is still running - can't people spend a lot of time in the bathtub?
    • theshrike79 5y ago
      It only works if the water is cooler than the ambient air. A bathtub full of water will warm up to ambient at some point and won't be as effective after that.
    • ljf 5y ago
      In the locations this happens, does everyone : have access to a bath (one per family member), running water (in a city were everyone is running a bath at the same time), a job where the aren't forced to go out and work every day to survive?
  • deniscepko2 5y ago
    I wonder if going underground can help (being realistic that we are not going to make any drastic CO2 related changes)
    • darig 5y ago
      Underground is as hot as the average surface temperature... so you live in a cave for a few years, pooping in the corner and eating bats... and then die anyways.
  • alexose 5y ago
    I challenge anyone to read that chapter and not be moved. Absolutely brutal, visceral writing.
  • itmayno 5y ago
    A mass death event will likely happen in a city with 26 million people that most folks outside China aren’t aware of the danger..Shanghai. Shanghai has been having extreme heatwaves, the worst one in 2017 where the temperature went to 46 degrees. Shanghai is projected to be unlivable in this century.
    • reilly3000 5y ago
      I’m not sure if it’s an issue specifically around Shanghai, but electric power has been unsteady in China at large. An energy crisis during a heatwave could be indeed deadly, especially with the ambient temperatures of city life. I’m bullish on Chinese acumen for major infrastructure projects and I’m sure they will adapt, but that seems like a crazy costly set of projects. At this point ultrawhite paints look promising.
  • ajuc 5y ago
    > everyone living under such a heat wave will likely die. I mean ground and buildings have thermal inertia, if the heatwave is relatively short you can survive in basements or underground parking. Also water in the pipes will still be colder than the air most likely.
  • sershe 5y ago
    Genuine question: does old-style insulation not help? From when I was a kid I remember that a log house built using 60ies village technology (realistically probably more like 19th century technology), insulated with something stuffed in the triangles between logs and wallpaper and logs and planks (and partially eaten by mice ;)), stayed pleasantly cool on 90-degree days. And the dugout under it that we used to store potatoes and stuff like that was actually cold. In a recent Seattle heatwave, when it was 107 outside my much poorer insulated semi-basement with direct sun shining into its large-ish windows, stayed under 85 without AC. Couldn't people just build better / underground housing using relatively primitive technology?
    • kevingadd 5y ago
      Eventually it'll be hot enough outside that the "cooler" inside is not cool enough without air conditioning.
      • ajuc 5y ago
        This is temperature of air (big amplitude) vs temperature of ground X meters undergrounds. If you go deep enough it doesn't matter how hot it is outside - the temperature is basically constant the whole year. http://www.rynekinstalacyjny.pl/images/photos/24/3877/__b_Analiza_CFD_rys_2.jpg http://www.rynekinstalacyjny.pl/images/photos/24/3877/__b_An...
        • tullianus 5y ago
          I'd bet that data is from sensors with low heat dissipation. Unfortuantely, humans produce ~100W of heat each. If you're using a small underground basement as a place to escape lethal heat aboveground, or even a large underground basement with high people/m³, this added heat will steadily increase the basement's wall temperature. The rate of temperature increase depends on physical properties of the basement walls: using the first equation here[0] as an approximation, set x to 0, set q"_o to 100W*(# people)/(basement surface area). α is the thermal diffusivity of the wall material [1]. [0] https://slideplayer.com/slide/1676039/7/images/9/Semi-Infinite+Solid+%28cont.%29.jpg https://slideplayer.com/slide/1676039/7/images/9/Semi-Infini... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_diffusivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_diffusivity
  • jiggawatts 5y ago
    > Combined with power outages, as happens in the book, everyone living under such a heat wave will likely die. That's an exaggeration. Extreme heat (including heat waves that exceed this threshold) happen semi-regularly, and the death rate when they occur is nowhere near 100%. More like 0.1% or less. Electrically-powered air conditioning is not the only way to cool a human body. Simply escaping to an underground or substantially enclosed area is sufficient for periods of up to a few days, or even weeks depending on the thickness of the walls. Car parks, cellars, caves, etc... all retain a relatively constant temperature irrespective of temporary swings of the air temperature outside. Similarly, immersing oneself in a body of water below about 36 C is also sufficient, and that's typically available even if the local air temperature and humidity exceeds safe levels. E.g.: Rivers "carry" the cold down from mountains, and are safe havens during temperature extremes. Even the local pool is sufficient, because water has such a massive thermal capacity that it won't heat up anywhere near as fast as the air around it. At times like this you see people filling up their bathtubs and just hanging out in there until things blow over. More worrying is what happens to wildlife. Some animals simply can't escape like humans and most animals can. For example in Australia a recent heatwave killed something like half of all flying foxes!
    • rini17 5y ago
      Many apartments don't have a bathtub, only a shower. And if everyone keeps tap water running, the pressure will drop down to trickle. Cold cellars can be in short supply, underground car parks tend to get hot too. And seems you probably never bathed in 35°C water, it's definitely not refreshing. And there are psychological issues that people just don't know what to do till it's too late. I was living an apartment with only 1 southern window, the heat was hard to vent. Once during a heatwave I found myself in a weird lethargy then I started going sick and then I found out the thermometer shows 40°C inside. I went outside immediately. Were not a healthy young man, that could have ended up badly. Since that I never underestimate the heat. That does not mean 100% fatality rate is possible but it definitely might be more than 0.1%.
      • giantg2 5y ago
        "Many apartments don't have a bathtub, only a shower. And if everyone keeps tap water running, the pressure will drop down to trickle." People don't have trashcans, storage bins, etc? "And seems you probably never bathed in 35°C water, it's definitely not refreshing." Where is this 35C water coming from? Also, if it's a humid heat, there are likely to be natural or artificial bodies of water around. Hopefully the people have been taking care of them and they aren't a cesspool. Sure, some people may die, but it should be very low. Edit: why downvote? All the excuses the previous person gave seem petty to me, so I'm wondering how that person came to their conclusion. Especially for where that hot water is coming from.
  • n8cpdx 5y ago
    > especially in poor tropical countries that don't have a stable infrastructure to cool most people during such a heatwave Like California? They already can’t keep the lights on with rolling blackouts happening every year. If one of those blackouts happens during a severe heatwave, it could be serious. Not to mention the serious economic cost of having a third-world quality grid in what should be one of the union’s most prosperous states.
    • knuthsat 5y ago
      I think California's air is too dry to get to the wet-bulb temp limit.
      • n8cpdx 5y ago
        For now. I was seeing temps pretty close to 120 last year. It was dry, but who knows how the climate will change either the humidity or the high temps. 130+ doesn’t seem inconceivable and that gets pretty close to the limit.
  • andrei_says_ 5y ago
    I started reading it and it’s the most grabbing and realistic writing on climate collapse that I’ve encountered to date. The prediction of how people react to the changes - from individuals to institutions to governments is spot on. Highly recommended.
  • csomar 5y ago
    Edit: didn't know about wet-bulb temperatures (was confusing it with perceived temperature). Here is a link for a wet-bulb temp. map: https://meteologix.com/th/observations/701-e-263-n/wet-bulb-temperature/20210811-0000z.html https://meteologix.com/th/observations/701-e-263-n/wet-bulb-...
    • lmilcin 5y ago
      I think you don't understand what wet bulb temperature is. Wet bulb temperature is a combination of humidity and temperature. Wet bulb temperature of 35C means your body physically cannot get rid of heat and you WILL die, rather quickly, even in shade. There is no escape unless you have ability to control humidity (ie. remove some humidity from the air). Up until recently we did not have situations on earth where wet bulb temperature would reach 35C. Even in the most hot places the air would be dry enough to bring wet bulb temperature down under 35C meaning, things can cool below human body temperature. The issue is that a lot of people in hot places simply do not have the means to control their climate in their houses, assuming they have any.
  • Pelam 5y ago
    What will the vegetation and animal life look after such a heat wave? Mad Max desert? Or are they so much better adapted that it won’t be a problem (I don’t think so)
    • Retric 5y ago
      It’s not just about adaption, many animals in hot climates burrow which provides a cooler place to rest than above ground housing.
  • agumonkey 5y ago
    Small questions, Arab countries used to build cooling towers a few centuries ago. Would that help for countries you were thinking of?
  • xwdv 5y ago
    Imagine a future where looters drive through wastelands where heat waves killed off the entire human population, dead bodies rotting in the street, and the looters rummaging through whatever valuables they find, exchanging occasional gunfire with a survivor or rival clans. That’s the climate changed world.
  • dirtyoldmick 5y ago
    Web bulb? I think you mean wet bulb. Unless we've gotten spiderman involved.
  • ThinkBeat 5y ago
    I have travelled to two countries where heat can hit that temperature, and they do not have the luxury of any AC, or in some cases even a fridge. A few cities around the world do reach 35 or higher regularly during summer. And in a some of those people have lived for thousands of years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_average_temperature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_average_temp...
    • capitol_ 5y ago
      Wet bulb temperature is not the same as average temperature. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature
      • nojs 5y ago
        Here is a decent visual explanation of the relationship with relative humidity: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1923&context=extensionhist https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&...
  • j1elo 5y ago
    For people reading "web bulb" here and not having the least idea of what it is, first of all it's "wet bulb", and this article explained it very clearly to me: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/why-is-everybody-talking-about-wet-bulb-temperatures/ https://www.iflscience.com/environment/why-is-everybody-talk...
    • tootie 5y ago
      Seems like Wet Bulb is a more precise version of what some weather reporters call "Heat Index". Meant to measure how hot it actually feels on the skin. Is there any sort of formula mapping heat + humidity to wet bulb?
      • robotguy 5y ago
        https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/wet-bulb https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/wet-bulb
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • shoemakersteve 5y ago
        In Canada we call it "humidex" because we're cool like that.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  • iandanforth 5y ago
    I made the mistake of starting to read this before going to sleep last night. Terrifying.
  • spywaregorilla 5y ago
    I find it amusing that people are trying to downplay this because it is feasibly survivable in their opinions. If you're wondering "how I can survive these circumstances in my own home?" things are already really, really bad.
    • chinchilla2020 5y ago
      95 Fahrenheit is actually quite survivable. It is dangerous for old people, young people, and the very sick when combined with sun exposure and other factors. I spent much of my life living in that temperature range without A/C, working outside during the day in the sun. It's hot but not going to kill you. In fact, there are massive homeless encampments outside my window right now in extremely humid, hot, Texas weather (it is 95-97 all week and very human). The homeless have endured many summers like this. It is a massive stretch to say these temperatures are not survivable. They are not healthy in the long run - but neither is sun exposure. It's an incredible exaggeration to say Chicago (where 600 people died in the heat wave) is not survivable at all when millions actually did survive the heat wave without AC.
      • electroly 5y ago
        They're talking about wet bulb 95 degrees which occurs at somewhere around 130 degrees of open air temperature. You have not spent much of your life at wet bulb 95 degrees.
      • spywaregorilla 5y ago
        95F in dry air is not the same thing as wet bulb 95F. That is the majority of the discussion being had in other threads.
        • kristjansson 5y ago
          Critically, not just 'dry air' vs 'humid' in the human sense. Wet-bulb is temperature at 100% relative humidity. A 'humid' day in the human sense is like 60-70%.
      • deleted 5y ago
  • bumblebritches5 5y ago
    lol 95 degrees ferenheit?!
  • aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
    Wet. It’s called wet bulb, not “web bulb”.
• throwawayboise 5y ago
  35C = 95F for those of us who are in the USA.
  • nicodemus26 5y ago
    Wet bulb 35°C, which feels like 160°F dry bulb for those of us who are in the USA with varying amounts of water in the air. > The wet-bulb temperature is defined as the temperature of a parcel of air cooled to saturation (100% relative humidity) by the evaporation of water into it ... The theoretical limit to human survival for more than a few hours in the shade, even with unlimited water, is 35 °C (95 °F) – theoretically equivalent to a heat index of 70 °C (160 °F) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • bullfightonmars 5y ago
    A wet-bulb temperature of 35C is equivalent to a heat index of 70C (160F).
• hamburgerwah 5y ago
  It's hilarious to me that people somehow think hot is MUCH more dangerous than cold. If you do any homework you will see which end results in more deaths.
  • xkcd-sucks 5y ago
    Well, one can warm up by eatnig lots of food, wearing other critters' skins, and burning stuff; all of which are stone-age (or earlier) technologies. Cooling down requires air conditioning (modern tech) or access to natural cold water (privilege)
    • hamburgerwah 5y ago
      Or digging a hole or holes, and running air and or water through them, like has been done for thousands of years in very hot places.
      • mlyle 5y ago
        Which isn't likely to be a reasonable solution when we have a few days notice of an extreme hot weather event reaching a region for the first time. Predicting how common they'll be in a given place and arguing to prepare beforehand for what will likely still be a somewhat rare event (with unknown exact frequency) is hard.
  • jfoutz 5y ago
    Huh. https://www.weather.gov/hazstat/ https://www.weather.gov/hazstat/ That's of course cherry picked. But I think the sucky part is increasing the variance of the temperature distribution. So the hot is hotter and the cold is colder, and both ends really suck.
    • trashtester 5y ago
      According to this Lancet study, about 5M die from cold globally, annually, while about 500K die from heat: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5... I found the article through this link: https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/climate_change_heat_related_deaths/index.html https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/climate_change_heat_r... Interestingly, the emory link did not quote how many deaths were due to cold vs heat, but it did say that cold related deaths were going down and heat related deaths were going up. By cherry picking just the part of the article that support a global warming narrative, but leaving out that cold is still, by far, the main danger, emory is seriously misrepresenting the science, imo. Btw, the Guardian coverage for the same article is only slightly better: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/extreme-temperatures-kill-5-million-people-a-year-with-heat-related-deaths-rising-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/extreme-temper... While it does mention that cold kills more, it does not mention that the ratio is 10:1 in the study.
• hugh-avherald 5y ago
  > Our survey of the climate record from station data reveals many global TW exceedances of 31° and 33°C and two stations that have already reported multiple daily maximum TW values above 35°C. I only did a quick skim of the paper, but I couldn't actually find which two stations they were talking about. I'm curious as to which two places they were.
  • Retr0 5y ago
    Jacobabad - Pakistan, Ras al Khaimah - United Arab Emirates, and Jeddah - Saudi Arabia are the only cities with multiple TW>=35 recordings according to their table S2 in page 24 of this pdf https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2020/05/04/6.19.eaaw1838.DC1/aaw1838_SM.pdf https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2020/05/04/6.1...
• Johnny555 5y ago
  Similar question to this that I've been wondering this wildfire season -- at what point is AQI (Air Quality Index) too severe for human tolerance? The scale tops out at 500, what happens to a person if the air is even worse than that? Some sensors near Medford, OR are reading in the upper 400's and even low 500's -- what happens if it hits what would be the 1000's if the scale went that high? I'm mostly thinking of particulates, but AQI includes other gases like CO, SO2, NO2 so maybe those would be more dangerous than particulates (and certainly harder to filter out)
  • javajosh 5y ago
    Practically speaking, you start wearing a mask. You start filtering the air inside, and you stop going outside. This way-of-life is already familiar to people in certain major cities, and to those with health issues that make them more vulnerable to air quality problems. It's a worse life, but it's still life.
    • mjn 5y ago
      This is one reason I hope it continues to be socially acceptable in the U.S. to wear masks. I've wanted to wear one even pre-covid for pollution and pollen, but you would get very weird looks, or even stopped by security in some cases.
      • edoceo 5y ago
        I still wear mine. Recently visited family who live in $RED_VOTER area. Got a bunch of looks from the locals. Nobody said anything - and who cares if they did? I've learned to say "fuck off" in multiple languages (thank you internet!)
        • nefitty 5y ago
          “I have an immune disease you asshole.”
        • swiley 5y ago
• throwaway894345 5y ago
  It’s wild to me that even the Biden administration appears so cavalier on climate. $1.2T on infrastructure and a follow up $3.5T budget bill and in both the environmental provisions are lame. Still no carbon pricing or anything that might make Exxon execs too uncomfortable (yes, I know Exxon supports carbon pricing in public because they don’t think anyone will actually do it).
  • losteric 5y ago
    Blame Congress for the poor investments in America's future. Biden's direct influence is limited to the executive branch.
    • throwaway894345 5y ago
      Traditionally presidents set the agenda and work to get support, but you’re right that it’s a team sport and Biden needs congressional support. It’s disappointing that there isn’t enough support even among Democrats (Biden is trying to push through a $3.5T budget plan without any Republican support so clearly he thinks he can get things done on just a Democratic basis, but apparently he doesn’t think major climate initiatives will be popular with the Democratic crowd?).
  • pugworthy 5y ago
    It's not as much what he would do as what he could do. Not everything is going to fly through the house and senate with ease.
    • throwaway894345 5y ago
      I imagine it would be a lot easier if it weren’t bundled with trillions of dollars for other programs. It kind of feels like climate should be the number one priority and while Republicans are close to worthless it feels like Democratic politicians aren’t much more interested in offending their corporate masters. But in general I agree, it’s hard to get these things passed when so many congresspeople are in the pockets of moneyed interests.
  • 5y ago
• andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  [deleted]
  • CryptoPunk 5y ago
    The key here is humidity. With low humidity it's possible to lose heat through perspiration. With high humidity it's not.
    • andrewmcwatters 5y ago
      Yes, you're right, I've updated my post to remove that bit.
  • _moof 5y ago
    The limit is 35°C wet bulb temperature. The temperature you're accustomed to reading is dry bulb. You can't compare wet and dry bulb readings; they're completely different measures. The annual maximum wet bulb temperature in Arizona the last few years has been about 24°C. You were nowhere near the limit.
    • elihu 5y ago
      Using some random internet web-based calculator, apparently 50° C (122° F) at 34% humidity is just under 35° C (95° F) wet bulb temperature. The calculator wouldn't go above 50° C, so I don't know what the temperature would be at 0% humidity.
  • prawn 5y ago
    It gets to 115+F where I live, sometimes for a few days. If you go outside bald in full sun without a hat, within seconds it feels as though your brain is cooking in your skull. It's liveable for a short stretch, but seriously discourages you from going outside. Parts of the garden crisp up and die in a day.
• niggerdude 5y ago
  wow you're such a cool little faggot
• supperburg 5y ago
  They make refrigeration systems for people who work outside. It’s a giant compressor that cools a liquid and moves that liquid through a tube and across a persons body via a vest. I remember one guy who owns a roofing business was saying that it’s totally worth the money to cool your crew down because your guys actually work faster and also you won’t have any heat injuries.
• sudhirj 5y ago
  There are two cities in India that are pretty close by where this difference is very clear. Chennai is on the coast, while Bangalore is inland at a higher altitude while they’re both pretty much the same latitude. The difference in perception even if the dry bulb temperature is the same is insane. In Bangalore I can always find shade and it’ll be cool instantly, but in Chennai my whole body is always soaking wet, my clothes are drenched with my own sweat and I still feel like always about to faint. I used to take long walks during the day when I lived in Bangalore (it has other man made problems like traffic which are still irritating) but here I Chennai I can’t walk or jog outside even if I wanted to. I step outside only to run to the car and turn the AC on.
  • twic 5y ago
    It's striking to me that according to the map in figure 4, the parts of the Indian subcontinent most at risk are in the Indus and Ganges valleys. Areas hundreds of miles further south (including Chennai and Bangalore) are safe! Why is this? I see that the south is much more mountainous [1], whereas the Indus and Ganges valleys are very flat (hence that term "Indo-Gangetic Plain"). Is it just the combination of being low-altitude, being inland, and having lots of water? Or are there also differences in prevailing wind, or something else? [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/jcdtvi/relief_map_of_india/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/jcdtvi/relief_map_...
    • scythe 5y ago
      The seabreeze colliding with the mountains in South India likely results in significant cloud cover, which cools the surface by reflecting sunlight. You can see here that the southern region has less total sunlight per year (lighter = cloudier): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_duration#/media/File:Globalcldfr_amo_200207-201504_lrg.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_duration#/media/File:...
    • jameshart 5y ago
      The article indicates that in tropical regions cloud cover has an impact on maximum temperature reached; subtropical regions have less consistent cloud and so have stronger heatwaves.
• niggerdude 5y ago
  OH HOLY SHIT YOU JUST FUCKIN PWNED EVERYONE WHO EVER DIED OF COLD EVER. DAMN, THOSE RETARDS WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST THINK TO BUILD A FIRE AND PUT THE FIRE UP TO THEIR INTERNAL ORGANS, FUCKIN RETARDS DYING OF COLD, HAHA FUCK THEM STUPID IDIOTS
• dash2 5y ago
  At the start of the article: "Results suggest that, under the business-as-usual RCP8.5 emissions scenario..." Roger Pielke is good about this. He points out that the "business-as-usual" scenario is extremely unlikely: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-unstoppable-momentum-of-outdated https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-unstoppable-momentu... I'm not arguing that the original article is uninformative or unimportant.
  • perrygeo 5y ago
    The RCP8.5 scenario would require that humanity burned almost every last drop of oil and did nothing to mitigate carbon. That's not likely because the remaining fossil fuel deposits are significantly more costly and energy-intensive to extract. Eventually the energy return on energy invested will drop to economically nonviable levels. It's debatable whether the carbon emitted in 8.5 is even physically possible. My guess is humans collaborating on a green future will mitigate emissions ever so slightly. But it will be energy/financial crises that force us to. So can we look forward to fewer impacts under a more moderate pathway (say 4.5 w/m^2)? Probably not. The IPCC has consistently under-estimated the impacts and ignored feedback loops. Even the latest AR6 report says "Additional ecosystem responses to warming not yet fully included in climate models, such as CO2 and CH4 fluxes from wetlands, permafrost thaw and wildfires, would further increase concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere." We're locked into runaway climate impacts for centuries either way, not much of a consolation prize.
• sershe 5y ago
  There are 4 broad scenarios according to which (or a combination thereof) the climate emergency will develop: 1) In a giant case of prisoners' dilemma, the humanity will coordinate worldwide and rise to the occasion, massively cut emissions, tax carbon, build out renewables, etc. 2) There will be massive technological breakthru-s in carbon capture and/or energy production and/or geo-engineering (and I am not talking about things like nuclear, where the tech is mostly there but the rising-to-the-occasion bit is missing). 3) Somehow, the models and projections would turn out to be overblown, or the more mellow of the serious models that project we lose N% GDP or whatever would turn out to be correct. 4) We're doomed, doomed! Given the humanity's realistic record with (1) and (3)... either fusion works, or [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRHOcWj--cs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRHOcWj--cs
  • yosito 5y ago
    I think the most likely scenario is 5) The climate changes, and humanity adapts to live in the new climate.
    • sershe 5y ago
      That is somewhere between 3 and 4.
    • estebank 5y ago
      Humanity adapts and carries on. People are fucked.
  • nefitty 5y ago
    Thanks for distilling the situation so well. I’ve been stuck obsessing over the doomsday scenario. It’s easy to forget there’s other possible futures that might lessen my anxiety and push me to make certain helpful personal and career choices.
  • concordDance 5y ago
    My money is on space sunshades. While it would cost tens of trillions to make a sunshade by launching from Earth, making sunshades and launching them from the moon should be viable thanks to the lack of atmosphere and low gravity. Assuming that a few million tons of mass is enough to set up a space sunshade manufacturing station (and railgun launch rails) it should only cost a few trillion dollars, cheaper than reducing CO2 emissions.
• loopz 5y ago
  There being an energy imbalance in the world comes from somewhere. It could not have come, at least not so fast, without an imbalance in the human psyche for the last couple of hundred years. How much is enough, when is enough enough, what is my purpose for existing, how can I be of service while not being taken advantaged of, and without unreasonable demands? There is a need for reckoning, though it needs to start from within. This crisis may be of a more spiritual nature than is evident on the surface.
• hwlim 5y ago
  Tell that to the conservatives/climate change deniers. They are already in favour of "moving inland" to combat rising sea levels due to climate change. I'm sure they are also in favour of evolving mankind to be able to survive harsh climate.
• lmilcin 5y ago
  I see a lot of uninformed people on this thread thinking 35C wet bulb temperature isn't such a big deal and proposing various ineffective tips to cool down. Let me explain what the issue is, in simple words: WET BULB TEMPERATURE IS NOT TEMPERATURE YOU SEE ON A THERMOMETER. (please, don't nitpick, I am aware of wet bulb thermometers) Wet bulb temperature is combination of temperature and humidity. The simple layman way to understand it is it says what minimum temperature an object can attain by evaporating water off it, in perfect conditions (forced airflow, full shade, no internal heating, etc.) When air is dry, even if it is hot you can evaporate sweat and cool down -- the wet bulb temperature is low in dry air. You can survive on Sahara because while the air can be very hot, it is also dry. You sweat and you cool down. As the humidity rises, the wet bulb temperature approaches dry bulb temperature and at 100% humidity they are both the same. When air is 100% humid you cannot cool down by sweating at all -- the sweat will not evaporate in 100% humidity regardless of temperature. Meaning that an air with 35C and 100% humidity has 35C wet bulb temperature but so can hotter air that has less than 100% humidity. The hotter air the lower humidity is needed for the object to cool down to 35C. Wet bulb of 35C is a limit of human endurance. Even if you lie down in shade and do nothing and are completely healthy, your body is barely able to remove enough heat to survive. Any higher temperature and you WILL eventually die. People who need to work (like move around at all) or are sick or are small (kids) will die faster. The only way to resolve this issue is to dry the air somehow. Things that don't work: -- going into shade. You are still going to die, just a little bit slower. -- having a fan. It can't cool you down, because water will not evaporate to cool anything below wet bulb temperature. You are going to die. -- going into cellar. The air will get cooler but the humidity will rise. You are going to die, unless you can cool the air DRY BULB temperature below 35C. At which point your cellar will have water condensing on its walls which means you can remove humidity from air. It will be shitty, wet, 100% humid, hot place, to sit half a day in with your family, kids and neighbors that don't have an expansive cellar like you, but at least you will survive. Yay... The issue is in areas that tend to be very hot and susceptible to this phenomenon, people tend to not have means to dry the air. They either don't have money for equipment or they have open homes (who keeps their home shut in a climate like that) assuming they have home at all. From economic point of view, the problem is that even under wet bulb temperature of 35C some people will already be dying and others will have to stop whatever they are doing, which is not good for your economy.
• darkerside 5y ago
  Where can you find historical wet bulb temperatures for a specific locality?
• mrfusion 5y ago
  The gloom and doom posts on HN seem to be increasing lately. I can go to CNN if I want this kind of content. That being said I would be ok with posts talking about fixing climate change especially if it preserves human rights and dignity.
  • Aeolun 5y ago
    Strangely enough, there seems to be a correlation between governments and people ignoring the effects of their actions on the climate, and the doom and gloom posts. I wonder why.
  • rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    How is that "gloom and doom"?
    • advanced-DnD 5y ago
      He doesn't want to sacrifice anything or changes that will affect him personally.
  • tootie 5y ago
    Of all the gibberish conspiracy theories about the downfall of society, this is the one thing that's definitely happening and needs to be addressed urgently.
  • Dumblydorr 5y ago
    In your book, what counts as fixing climate while preserving human rights and dignity?
    • mrfusion 5y ago
      Good question. I could do some examples. Good: carbon tax or cap and trade (ideally revenue neutral). Electric car subsidies. Bad: climate lockdowns. Restricting travel. Travel credits. Social credit score tied to climate behavior. (This stuff keeps me up at night) So bottom line: Following this https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma... and this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights and you’re fine in my book. But that’s not an assumption I make these days.
• tomrod 5y ago
  I wonder if people confuse wet bulb and dry bulb here. Wet bulb is related to how well your air conditioner or sweating will cool you. Dry bulb is what we usually say when taking a temperature reading, or listening to the local news' meteorologist.
  • specialist 5y ago
    Ya, for messaging, "wet bulb" doesn't work well. We need a more intuitive phrase, like a "wind chill factor" for heat + humidity = danger. Edit: chewing on "wet heat factor". What do you think? Cliches like "but it's a 'dry heat' harhar" are already common. So "wet heat" might click.
    • swiley 5y ago
      IMO wet bulb is much more intuitive. The parameters for heat index are subjective.
      • tomrod 5y ago
        I believe the intuition depends on context. In common jargon Wet Bulb isn't widely understood!
    • kortex 5y ago
      https://www.weather.gov/ama/heatindex https://www.weather.gov/ama/heatindex
      • specialist 5y ago
        Nice, thanks. FWIW, I just checked, and wunderground reports both temp and 'feels like', apparently matching the NWS Heat Index: https://www.wunderground.com/hourly/us/tx/dallas https://www.wunderground.com/hourly/us/tx/dallas
        • The-Bus 5y ago
          The problem is that wet-bulb temperature is not the Heat Index or a "feels-like" temperature. Here's a bit more info: https://www.weather.gov/source/zhu/ZHU_Training_Page/definitions/dry_wet_bulb_definition/dry_wet_bulb.html https://www.weather.gov/source/zhu/ZHU_Training_Page/definit...
• NoblePublius 5y ago
  Many more humans die of cold exposure than heat exposure each year. Less extreme cold + more extreme heat would possibly, if not likely, lead to many fewer human deaths. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5...
• Dumblydorr 5y ago
  Can we start considering high tech solutions to actively cool the planet? We're going to slowly work on carbon, but it won't be fast enough. In the meantime, We need to prevent heat getting to Earth, either via more cloud cover or space mirrors in the LaGrange point. I'm not a fan of either, but what's the alternative? Bake to death while the powerful decision makers delay changing anything?
  • IgorPartola 5y ago
    We can’t. Let’s say that you find a magic box that can offset 20% of the carbon emissions globally. Yay you just reduced carbon emissions. But there is no budget for carbon emissions. So those who produce it (agriculture, heavy industry) can now feel free to just produce more CO2 and toss it into the air. Besides, not every place is as industrialized as the US or China but they want to be. So the emissions will soon catch up to the old levels while your machine is cranking at full speed. It’s the equivalent of getting a second job because you can’t stop spending money: it’ll offset when you go broke but won’t prevent it. The only way to fix this is to tax the shit out of anything that pollutes with CO2 or other greenhouse gasses (which will naturally be passed on as a cost to consumers). There is jo other way out.
    • MichaelDickens 5y ago
      If (some) people already emit however much CO2 they want, why would offsetting emissions cause them to emit even more?
      • IgorPartola 5y ago
        People emit little CO2 by themselves. Your choice of a Prius vs a Camry isn’t by and large as important as the food you eat. Just by being alive you are consuming about 10kW if you live in the US, the majority of which is the fact that the food you eat is grown on mega farms. Between agricultural machinery, fertilizer, and transportation of that food from the farms to your grocery store, that’s the major part of your energy consumption. Per capita energy consumption is a surprisingly strong indicator of quality of life. Third world countries often top out at less than 1kW for example. So in a world where everyone is trying to get to a high quality of life and only about 1B out of 8B have it, and in a world where for 7B to get to that quality of life we need to increase their energy consumption by a factor of 5-10, we are in a constant increase of total human energy consumption. Combined with population growth, we are nowhere near peak human CO2 output. In other words if you can make a device that can remove 20x of the CO2 we are currently putting out, then yes we could use that tech, assuming we don’t come up with some more quality of life ideas that push the energy budget further up the scale of course. But anything less than that won’t be enough as there is an accelerating growth in CO2 emissions with more or less no end in sight.
• nikkinana 5y ago
  Book reference Humans are bad Taxation is the answer We're all gonna die soon. Not today but soon. Yada yada yada
• rdevsrex 5y ago
  Obviously no one wants this to happen, but I wonder about any possible mitigation strategies. Like creating homes and infrastructure under the ground, or at least covered by lots of insulation, like a Moon base covered with lots of dirt. Of course, that would completely suck for the people who have to live there, and we should do our best to prevent it, but some people probably aren't going to have a choice but to try and handle it in whatever way they can.
  • JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    https://www.insider.com/coober-pedy-australia-underground-mining-town-tour-2021-7 https://www.insider.com/coober-pedy-australia-underground-mi... Coober Pedy everywhere I guess.
  • Kungfuturtle 5y ago
    One kind of building that I came across is called an "Earthship", which relies on "thermal mass construction and natural cross-ventilation to regulate indoor temperature".[1] It will be somewhat difficult to retrofit buildings to take advantage of e.g. thermal mass inertia, but I'm hopeful that new construction will increasingly favor passive/low-energy cooling methods. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship
• skeptic249757 5y ago
  This post appears to be fully within the Hacker News "approach to comments" and "site guidelines". The atmospheric temperature discussed as dangerous has been common in many parts of the earth for many years and is not nearly new. The real threat discussed is from heavy consideration of "business-as-usual RCP8.5 emissions scenario" and that is based on climate models evaluating the future, 2050+, effects of human sources of CO2 on temperature and climate. We have a long history of such models. Apparently they are usually based on the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The main question about CO2 is how much warming will be caused by a given quantity of CO2 from human activities. Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but maybe surprisingly so far from either observations or models, we have no credible evidence that human sources of CO2 have caused, are causing, or will cause significant warming. Okay, let's look at the observational data: There was a movie, An Inconvenient Truth. With data from Antarctic ice cores, the movie showed, for the atmosphere, a graph of temperature and CO2 concentrations going back about 800,000 years. As I watched the movie, it appeared that the claim was that the graph showed temperature and CO2 concentrations going up and down together. Then the movie concluded that the higher concentrations of CO2 caused the higher temperatures. Then there was a claim that currently more CO2 from human activities would rapidly cause significantly higher temperatures. But, we could look at that graph more closely, and doing that we will see three situations: (1) When temperature started to increase, CO2 (concentration, here and below) was low, not high. So, something caused the warming, but it was not high CO2. (2) About 800 years later, CO2 had increased. Presumably the cause was more biological activity from the higher temperatures. (3) Some thousands of years later, while CO2 was high, the temperatures fell again. There was a cause, but it was not low CO2. Indeed, the high CO2 did not keep temperatures from falling. Net, from that 800,000 years of data, there is no evidence that high CO2 caused high temperatures. It would be more accurate (though of course still wrong) to say that the data supported that CO2 caused LOWER temperatures. For some more recent data, there was some significant warming during the time of the Roman Empire and during the Medieval Warm Period, and there is no evidence that the cause was high CO2. There was some significant cooling during the Little Ice Age from roughly 1300 to 1900, but there is no evidence that the cause was low CO2. There was some cooling from 1940 to 1970 and concerns in the media about another ice age, and those years were when there was more CO2 from human activity from WWII and the post-war economic boom. So, in those years, with more CO2, we got some cooling instead of warming. Again it would be more accurate (though of course still wrong) to say that the data supported that CO2 caused COOLING. For some details, can start with "Global Cooling" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling#1974_Time_magazine_article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling#1974_Time_magaz... which discusses the two famous magazine stories, the 1974 <i>Time</i> story and the 1975 <i>Newsweek</i> story, worrying about "global cooling" and asking if we were entering a new ice age. For more on these magazine stories, at https://longreads.com/2017/04/13/in-1975-newsweek-predicted-a-new-ice-age-were-still-living-with-the-consequences/ https://longreads.com/2017/04/13/in-1975-newsweek-predicted-... can see the April 28, 1975, <i>Newsweek</i> article “The Cooling World”. So, net, there is no data on temperature and CO2 from the past that says that CO2 will cause warming. Yes, CO2 is a <i>greenhouse</i> gas. This means that it absorbs some light in the infrared but not the visible. In the case of CO2, it absorbs light out in the infrared in three narrow bands. The absorption spectrum is given at https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Spec=C124389&Index=0&Type=IR&Large=on https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Spec=C124389&Index=0&... Part of the mechanism is Planck black body radiation. We have had some warming since the Little Ice Age. It may be that we are still pulling out of the Little Ice Age, e.g., it can take a long time for the oceans to warm up. But even with this warming, it's cooler than in the Medieval Warm period and the Roman times when the polar bears didn't go extinct, the ice in Greenland and the Antarctic didn't melt, the oceans didn't rise and flood the coasts, and apparently humans didn't suffer. Apparently the main effects were greater agricultural productivity, e.g., in England, grapes were grown for wine. Could the warming since the Little Ice Age be due to CO2? No: The warming is at the surface, and CO2 absorbs high in the troposphere with definition at Google: <blockquote>the lowest region of the atmosphere, extending from the earth's surface to a height of about 3.7–6.2 miles (6–10 km), which is the lower boundary of the stratosphere. </blockquote> which, from MIT climate scientist Richard Lindzen, Alfred P Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Emeritus, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has gotten cooler, not warmer. Several attempts were made to model the atmosphere and calculate and predict the effects of human sources of CO2 on temperature. Nearly all the efforts predicted temperature increases that were rapid and significant. It has now been some years since the times of the predictions, and the predictions and reality are compared in the graph at http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg Summary: Nearly all the predictions were way too high. Science: So, so far climate modeling has no predictive value and, thus, is not good science. Result: The predictions have no meaningful credibility. Current Summary: There is no credible evidence from either the 800,000 years of the earth or the climate models that human sources of CO2 have had, are having, or will have significant effects on temperature or climate. As a result of this lack of evidence, there is no scientific reason to attempt to lower human sources of CO2.
• throwaway5752 5y ago
  We should call them exterminating heat events, make it clearer. Love the people calling for air conditioning. They should make peace corp or something compulsory, the degree of out-of-toucedness on some people about the degree of infra and poverty that exists here is extraordinary.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• jvanderbot 5y ago
  Here's a discussion of heat index and wet-bulb temps, with records from around the world. https://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/record-dew-point-temperatures.html https://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/record-de... The most dangerous / frequent occurrences seem to be measured in the middle east near shallow gulf coasts. Appleton Wisconsin holds the continental US record, apparently? This is from 2011. Here: https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/hi https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/hi says: > The highest dew points, and therefore the highest heat indices are usually found near warm bodies of water. > In the world, the warmest water is found in the Persian Gulf where the water temperature typically reaches up to 90°F (32°C) in summer. Therefore dew points will be that high as well. > The highest dew point ever recorded, 95°F (35°C), was recorded at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on July 8, 2003. With an air temperature of 108°F (42°C) the heat index was 178°F (81°C). > In the United States, the highest dew point ever recorded, 90°F (32°C), was recorded at the New Orleans Naval Air Station, on July 30, 1987, Melbourne, Florida on July 12, 1987. Heat indices were in the 130's°F (50's°C). > Appleton, Wisconsin also had a 90°F (32°C) dew point on July 13, 1995 with a heat index of 149°F (65°C)." So, it happened once.
• reddog 5y ago
  Call me Mr Glass Half Full, but since cold kills 20x more people than heat shouldn't we look forward to a future where many more people survive temperature extremes? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150520193831.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150520193831.h...
  • echlebek 5y ago
    No! Not even a little bit. Do you realize the rapidity of these changes puts our entire species at risk?
• 6510 5y ago
  Its funny how many people inflate their importance and think their occupation makes the world go round. In reality it takes a lot of people to keep everything in working order. Specially low wage labor is of disproportional importance. Work done by people who are often (or by definition) financially fragile. A good number of these (and slightly above) involve manual work in already harsh (if not hot) environment. When things get unbearable these people will look at their cards, fold and run away leaving hard to predict holes in the economy.
• gyrgtyn 5y ago
  Will any non-human mammals survive in these places? This sucks.
• wildermuthn 5y ago
  More than half these comments are meaningless because they misunderstand what Wet Bulb temperature is. I too didn’t understand what Wet Bulb temperatures meant until I used this calculator: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/wet-bulb https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/wet-bulb 95F TB (Temperature Wet Bulb) is when the humidity is 100% and it is 95F out. The lower the humidity, the lower the TB value. At 40% humidity and 120F temperature, you get 96F TB. Imagine 120F at 40% humidity. Insane, right? That’s what kind of temperatures this paper is talking about: dangerously hot and humid.
• kaminar 5y ago
  Humans have been through this many times before...the only constant is change.
• hasmanean 5y ago
  Another problem is that in wet conditions the virus aerosols spread much more rapidly. If people crowd into cooling shelters they’ll all get covid, masks or no masks.
• pvaldes 5y ago
  > The air humidity indoors will be to high to survive!, people will die! Seems an easily solvable problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silica_gel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silica_gel You are welcome. Sleep well tonight
• Borrible 5y ago
  Not exactly new news: https://www.sciencealert.com/middle-east-may-be-uninhabitable-this-century-due-to-deadly-heat-study-finds https://www.sciencealert.com/middle-east-may-be-uninhabitabl... Fun fact: With rising sea levels a lot of people there will be a lot nearer to a big enough body of water to cool their heat. Or not, since the humidity at coastal areas is higher: https://meteologix.com/ae/observations/wet-bulb-temperature.html https://meteologix.com/ae/observations/wet-bulb-temperature.... But don't worry, ironically the people who so generously provided the raw materials needed to raise global temperatures and sea levels are equally working on solutions to keep their asses out of the heat and their feet from getting wet. https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/environment/climate-change-is-making-uae-hotter-a-trend-that-will-continue-1.1249027 https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/environment/climate-chan... https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02697459.2020.1859199?journalCode=cppr20 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02697459.2020.18... From the abstract of the last paper, which isn't fully available online, sadly: "...this paper ventures regional planning responses to adapt to these threats through decentralising populations to inland areas." Dispersion to the inland areas? Sure, but the inland areas of which countries? ... But if they are lucky, they will maybe provide the material for cool and vast underground arcologies that could even reduce carbon dioxide emission from the building industry: https://www.bft-international.com/en/artikel/bft_Environmental_friendly_method_in_the_concrete_industry_3454325.html https://www.bft-international.com/en/artikel/bft_Environment...
• simonebrunozzi 5y ago
  Here again, one of those cases where as a non-native English speaker, despite 12+ years living in English-speaking countries and working for English-speaking companies, I encounter a term for the first time in my 44-years old life: "wet-bulb". The wet-bulb temperature is defined as the temperature of a parcel of air cooled to saturation (100% relative humidity) by the evaporation of water into it, with the latent heat supplied by the parcel. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature