Ancient humans are thought by some researchers to have done much the same. The deep underground artworks in some French caves are said to be evidence of humans escaping the cold. There's a reason I can think of that it might not work so well again. Lots of non-human animals survived the cold quite well, so there was game for those ancient ancestors to hunt, but there might be much less game surviving in great heat.
Ask HN: Possible to go/live underground to cool off?
31–38 of 38 posts
Re: Ask HN: Possible to go/live underground to cool off?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
It could be that “Most dugout homes are excavated into hillsides rather than dug from shafts” from your second article. AFAIK temperature doesn’t get cooler underground. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient
Hi, I'm in actual geophysics .. and you're linking to a phenomenon (quick, read your own link) that occurs over a scale of tens, hundreds, and thousands of kilometers. Near surface underground is different. Aquifers and all manner of other things behave differently to your blanket "AFAIK temperature doesn’t get cooler underground" and it's well known in practice that digging down a few stories evens out the tempretur…
Re: Ask HN: Possible to go/live underground to cool off?
#33My house is half dug in to a hill; west TN USA. Summer cooling is a bigger concern here than winter heating; and it wins in the summer. In the winter, it's still a minor win, the half the house with the dug in brick wall wants to be ground temperature (say 60F), which is still higher than air temperature... but its difficult to get it heated up to temps i can live with (72F). Much thermal mass that has inertia. Moist…
Re: Ask HN: Possible to go/live underground to cool off?
#34Edit: I'm thinking mostly underground is much cheaper and reduces the risks of wildfire, wind, hail, tornado, and lightning. / There's also the opal miners in Australia who built their whole town underground. https://youtu.be/4h9XwwgQKRQ&t=2s
Re: Ask HN: Possible to go/live underground to cool off?
#35Re: Ask HN: Possible to go/live underground to cool off?
#36Radon and lack of vitamin D will be problems.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2019.0011...
Vit D, can be replicated with UV-B flo tubes used by people keeping reptiles.
Re: Ask HN: Possible to go/live underground to cool off?
#37Ancient humans are thought by some researchers to have done much the same. The deep underground artworks in some French caves are said to be evidence of humans escaping the cold. There's a reason I can think of that it might not work so well again. Lots of non-human animals survived the cold quite well, so there was game for those ancient ancestors to hunt, but there might be much less game surviving in great heat.
And having game to hunt or not, is relevant to modern citizens how?
Re: Ask HN: Possible to go/live underground to cool off?
#38What surprised me the most was that it was something they thought would be mostly sold to the very rich. This conversation got me very depressed.