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

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

#261

Post by epgui »

giantg2 wrote: post #201
rini17 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

"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 peo…

You’re being unreasonably optimistic. It’s wishful thinking.

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

#262

Post by michaelbuckbee »

Stratoscope wrote: post #236
rini17 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

> underground car parks tend to get hot too This is something that has puzzled me every time I park in the underground garage under City Hall in Palo Alto. It is always so hot down there compared to the outside air. I was about to ask if anyone knows why that is, and then realized I could search for the answer: https://www.google.com/search?q=why+do+underground+garages+g... Lots of interesting opinions there, includi…

This reminds me of how the London Underground used to be much cooler, but the trains have raised the temperature of the clay surrounding the tunnels sufficiently that it never cools off:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_cooling

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

#263

Post by nojs »

capitol_ wrote: post #257
ThinkBeat wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_temp...

Wet bulb temperature is not the same as average temperature. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

Here is a decent visual explanation of the relationship with relative humidity: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&...

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

#264

Post by giantg2 »

epgui wrote: post #261
giantg2 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 peo…

You’re being unreasonably optimistic. It’s wishful thinking.

How so? What part is unreasonable?

I was specifically questioning things like where is the hot water coming from, people without tubs can't figure out how to save water, etc. Those claims sound overly pessimistic and simplistic to me.

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

#265

Post by tomrod »

swiley wrote: post #237
specialist wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IMO wet bulb is much more intuitive. The parameters for heat index are subjective.

I believe the intuition depends on context. In common jargon Wet Bulb isn't widely understood!

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

#266

Post by Retr0 »

hugh-avherald wrote: post #31

> 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.

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/2020/05/04/6.1...

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

#267

Post by rdevsrex »

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.

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

#268

Post by nonameiguess »

numpad0 wrote: post #202
baybal2 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Karachi, and Sindh at large often goes through periods of +35 wet bulb. 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.

Wet bulb thermometer is the kind that a pair of thermometers are mounted together with one wrapped in wet cotton and the other dry. Typically between the two glass tubes is a little look up table that gives humidity from current dry bulb temperature and delta between the two. I don't know what exactly environment reaching 35C/95F web bulb means, but considering 1) it indicates temperature of a thermometer cooled by e…

Wet bulb 35C is equivalent to a heat index of 160F.

One issue that people who haven't experienced extreme heat might not realize is a lot of people just pass out really quickly. While it takes a while to go past the point of no return and they theoretically could be egressed to somewhere they can cool off and recover, if they're alone, they're not going to.

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

#269

Post by Mistletoe »

rdevsrex wrote: post #267

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 tr…

https://www.insider.com/coober-pedy-australia-underground-mi...

Coober Pedy everywhere I guess.

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

#270

Post by tootie »

j1elo wrote: post #254
boplicity wrote: post #2

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…

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-talk...

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?
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