7 ms·

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 w

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.

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.