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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)

#281

Post by rocknor »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #222
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Denmark, when it gets 26 degrees here I drench my shirts in ice water and put in the freezer for a bit and then put on to cool down. I'm guessing, given what a wimp I am about the temperature, a few more degrees and I'm one of the first to die.

I've lived in Australia and Norway. Your body adapts to ongoing temperatures. In Norway you're taking off your jumper as heads into double digits entering spring time. In Australian summer your putting on a jumper at 22 if there's a cold summer night. We've literally be talking to Norwegian family about their nice 22 degree day at the beach while I was loading the fire place, they asked me the temperature, checked an…

Yeah, people don't understand that the human body is remarkably adaptable. Just need to stay in a place for a while (a few weeks to months). I've cycled to school ~10 kms everyday in 35-40° as a kid, came home to cool down instantly under a ceiling fan. Now in my current city I find 27+ too hot.

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

#282

Post by iandanforth »

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…

I made the mistake of starting to read this before going to sleep last night. Terrifying.

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

#283

Post by api »

jiggawatts wrote: post #143
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…

> 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…

Even if they are not that deadly extreme heat waves could crash power grids (which is very costly due to lost productivity), kill crops and livestock, damage infrastructure, cause extreme increases in energy demand, and generally cost a shitload of money.

A higher frequency of extreme cold in winter in areas that are not accustomed to it, like what recently happened in Texas, may also occur with similar consequences.

I don't think climate change will be a catastrophe movie directed by JJ Abrams. I think it will be a gradual process in which we pay back the "loan" of fossil fuel use with interest.

We put our civilization on a credit card without knowing the interest rate.

We could have really slowed down our running up the balance in the 1970s and 1980s with nuclear power, but we didn't. We could still be doing that plus deploying a lot of renewable and storage tech that was not mature back then, but we're doing far too little of that. We are still adding to the card balance and we still don't know the interest or the repayment terms.

If there are feedback loops in the climate system that we trigger, the loan could be an ARM with unscheduled interest rate increases and balloon payments.

Our children get to inherit most of this bill.

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

#284

Post by [deleted] »

giantg2 wrote: post #245
Aeolun wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WB 35 °C (95 °F) – theoretically equivalent to a heat index of 70 °C (160 °F), though the heat index does not go that high I’m inclined to say that this is not very survivable, regardless of your precautions, if your air conditioning has died.

I'm not sure you understand wet bulb and heat index. Heat index is largely irrelevant when talking about the precautions mentioned. The actual temperature is no where near 70C, and actual temperatures matter when talking about cooling that does not use ambient air (and evaporative cooling assuming 100% humidity in this case). A wet bulb of 35C means that there is a thermometer covered with a wet cloth reading that te…

[deleted]

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

#285

Post by djrogers »

elchief wrote: post #94
masklinn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

And people START dying, en masse, at 28C wet bulb (see chicago and vancouver heat waves)

> 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.

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

#286

Post by swiley »

edoceo wrote: post #61
mjn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one reason I hope it continues to be socially acceptable in the U.S. to wear masks. I've wanted to wear one even pre-covid for pollution and pollen, but you would get very weird looks, or even stopped by security in some cases.

I still wear mine. Recently visited family who live in $RED_VOTER area. Got a bunch of looks from the locals. Nobody said anything - and who cares if they did? I've learned to say "fuck off" in multiple languages (thank you internet!)

Just tell them it's to protect your face from CCTV facial recognition. Most of the non authoritarian right is for that.

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

#287

Post by boplicity »

rudedogg wrote: post #6
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…

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.

Yes, that's right. I did mean wet-bulb. Not sure why my brain didn't register this mistake when I wrote it.

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

#288

Post by mrpopo »

briantakita wrote: post #223
mrpopo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's good to note that Yakutia is burning at a rapid rate. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/20/everything-is-...

There's historical evidence of global fires & mass extinctions due to Geomagnetic excursions, which we are currently going through right now, leaving Earth vulnerable to space weather. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305971138_Evidence_... https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018RG00... We are in for a bumpy ride of wild temperature swings & extreme terrestrial weather driven by space weather…

No.

IPCC 6th assessment report, summary for policymakers, page 8/42. Read it.

IPCC is the most conservative science body ever created. It comprises hundreds of scientists from all over the world, including Saudi Arabia and others, who need to unanimously approve each sentence. The role of human emissions in the current warming has been assessed without any possible doubt.

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

#289

Post by tullianus »

ajuc wrote: post #192
kevingadd wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually it'll be hot enough outside that the "cooler" inside is not cool enough without air conditioning.

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_An...

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-Infini... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_diffusivity

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

#290

Post by mrfusion »

treebot wrote: post #275
mrfusion wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question. I could do some examples. Good: carbon tax or cap and trade (ideally revenue neutral). Electric car subsidies. Bad: climate lockdowns. Restricting travel. Travel credits. Social credit score tied to climate behavior. (This stuff keeps me up at night) So bottom line: Following this https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma... and this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill…

What about just nationalizing the entire energy industry and everything related, instead of trying to work within the parameters of a free market for something with so many externalities?

Interesting. It’s possible the government could run it well but I would worry without a profit motive they might not adjust to supply and demand quickly and might not pursue new technologies like fusion.
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