161–170 of 414 posts
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Little pedantic, but you meant "Wet-bulb" temperature ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Temperatu... ). I only know from owning a swamp cooler.
Isn't it basically the same as the dew point temperature? I believe a lot more people are familiar with that.
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 t…
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…
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Huh. 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.
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/PIIS2542-5... I found the article through this link: 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…
I peeked at the lancet study, but it didn't support my trollish response to the OP.
The real point I was trying to make was the crazy extremes, the higher variance. I vividly recall running one morning when it got to -40F/-40C the night before. It sucked. The house was cold, work was cold. But one day is just a freak thing we all deal with, like snow in Atlanta. I remember a lot of government buildings shut down, to conserve natural gas. they made that resource available to everyone. Some people lost heat. I don't remember if people died. If that lasted for a week, I don't know what would have happened. I imagine it would have been bad. not riots, but heading in that direction.
There are 7 billion of us. We're pretty well adapted to our environments. We can handle a few bumps and potholes. Pushing those extremes, longer and deeper, that's not going to be fun.
Heat will kill. Cold will kill. Both are tolerable in the short run, but days of it is pretty scary. We're facing more of both. I don't have an answer to solve either case.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I can't say I'll get much use out of it tomorrow, but this is a long haul problem. I'll try to commit this evidence to memory. Maybe in a few months or years I can point at these references.
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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 ri…
Yes, I sometimes feel like I'm at death's door when jogging outdoors. Myself and some Westerners I know haven't "adapted", even after years being here. The strategy is just always have ice water in hand if outdoors for prolonged time. I sometimes get laughed at for not adjusting to the heat, but I think it's just too much for some genetic lineages from outside tropics. Unfortunately a large percentage of folks in HDB…
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 t…
> 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 s…
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%.
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 t…
> 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 s…
People can jump into fountains, or other bodies of water, hide at home, airconned buildings.
In the end, people can try to brave it, and wait for the relatively cool evening.
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I suppose the best available option for a lot of people if designated shelters aren't available would just be to walk to the nearest body of water and climb in, and wade around until the heat subsides.
You're assuming the nearest body of water is somehow cool enough, which is often not the case.
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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.
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 o…
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.
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.
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…
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.