19 ms·

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.

• 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).
      • saeranv 5y ago
        I'm dissappointed to see you're being downvoted for what looks like a good faith (and common) misconception with a request for more information. Anyway, the best way to learn more about this is to search for resources describing the "psychrometrics of evaporative cooling". Psychrometrics is the study of the thermodynamics of air and water vapor mixtures. Learning about the psychrometric chart, in particular, is helpful since it is a very clear, expressive tool that will illustrates how adiabitic (no change in thermal energy transfer) cooling can occur by adding humidity to dry air. I think this entry from engineering toolbox provides a good start: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/evaporative-cooling-d_698.html1 https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/evaporative-cooling-d_698...
  • WillDaSilva 5y ago
    Swamp coolers do not work in high humidity. Running cool water from underground over oneself works, but is unsustainable and impractical. Going underground to someplace cool is also sometimes an option that does not require electricity, but is often impractical and highly situational. Ultimately all that really works in our modern world at scale in such a heat wave is powered air conditioning, so ensuring that electrical power is not interrupted during such an event is of paramount importance if we are to avoid this new sort of natural disaster.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • cma 5y ago
      You could potentially heat up a dessicant to dry it out and use that indoors to survive the humidity without having to go underground or have AC.
      • WillDaSilva 5y ago
        Interesting idea, though I'm not aware of any desiccants that would be appropriate for the scale we'd need to operate at here. Silica gel, for instance, wouldn't work because there's too much water to handle. Dehumidifiers could be used instead, but they heat up the air as they dry it out. I believe desiccants also heat up the air, but only slightly. Maybe they would heat up the air a significant amount if they were removing enough water from it for this scenario.
  • bostonsre 5y ago
    Or.. Build more basements and underground shelters.
    • trhway 5y ago
      No, it wouldnt work as the heat would have nowhere to go. And the mid east people didn't do it - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher Instead you build and live in highrise/towers - that gives cheap ventilation which is a half the solution. And I liked the siesta and the following it very active life till deep night in Spain - another natural adaptation to hot climate. It makes for much calmer and steady life rhythm and feeling.
      • stormbrew 5y ago
        > Instead you build and live in highrise/towers I mean, I'm sure this is valid in some places but having lived in high rises relatively far north in Canada let me tell you it is very possible (and in my experience very common) to build high rises that retain heat so well they basically bake the occupants in high heat/humidity. I doubt most of North America's high rise apartment buildings above some latitude are particularly well equipped for this, so there's almost certainly a shift required in how you build them.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
        • baybal2 5y ago
          Look no further than Dubai how to build highrises with good feat insulation, and cooling.
      • bostonsre 5y ago
        You can build ventilation or even just building houses with basements would help a bunch. The temperature underground is a lot more cool and steady and would help you escape the heat. There is a town in Australia that does exactly this because it's so friggin hot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy
  • nostrademons 5y ago
    Migration. Large parts of the taiga and permafrost are about to open up to human habitation. All the folks in the Middle East and India should move north in search of better weather. Human societies have been historically very bad at handling large scale migrations, but it's about to become necessary.
    • XorNot 5y ago
      I am sure this will cause no serious issues whatsoever.
    • tessierashpool 5y ago
      there was an article during the recent Oregon heat wave by someone who moved to the PNW as a hedge against climate change. that heat wave killed almost 200 people and is estimated to have killed a billion marine animals. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/08/pacific-northwest-heatwave-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/08/pacific-nort... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/08/heat-dome-canada-pacific-northwest-animal-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/08/heat-dom... Migration is not going to cut it. Climate change is making weather more chaotic and unpredictable. Escape is impossible. The only place you can go where the planetary weather system’s disintegration does not pose a danger is space, where the absence of that same disintegrating weather system makes survival even harder. Reversal is the only option.
      • alexose 5y ago
        A million times this. It's important that everyone know that there's nowhere left to move to in order to continue ignoring the problem.
      • nostrademons 5y ago
        No place is going to be safe, but some places are going to be a lot safer than others. The PNW or Canada is a lot better bet than the Middle East or Bangladesh. Reversal is not really an option either; the best scientific evidence I've seen is that we've already past several tipping points that will accelerate warming regardless of what we do, and even if we haven't, we've had about zero decrease in worldwide CO2 emissions and a terrible track record in getting humanity to work together for common good.
• 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”.