Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave • Hacker News Board

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#171

Post by thoweir324234 » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 12:15 PM UTC

distances wrote: post #121

sirius87 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see this being discussed or something any public figure has said as being considered. Various states in India are deprioritizing power supply to industries in favour of consumer household use. So domestic news is playing those "govt reduces power supply to industries by 50%" headlines. [1] Use of ACs and air coolers has skyrocketed the demand for power (38 year high), thereby increasing demand for Coal. Inter…

And is there any sentiment that this is caused by climate change, and coal phase out should be accelerated? I get the immediate need for electricity, but talk about increasing coal stocks sounds weird nonetheless in light of what the goals are now in Western countries.

India has done more than its share to meet its commitments.

The rest of the world, of course, is full of pompous hypocrites who say one thing to arm-twist nations like India, while doing exactly the opposite at home (see, climate-change, Russian-oil etc.). Little wonder there is little trust of the West in the global south (except in "elite" circles).

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#172

Post by kburman » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 12:16 PM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #123

kburman wrote: post #100

Never knew Himalayan range is so effective. India should build artificial mountain range to stop heat weave entering the region.

Why? It’s easier to just invent fusion and get air conditioning going at the national level. Or just paint the entire country white.

not everyone might like all white. Instead of entire country we can have dome with climate control over metro city.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#173

Post by atq2119 » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 12:17 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #116

Etheryte wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more or less covered in the article as well: > Meteorologists from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) found that March 2022 was the hottest March for India as a whole since 1901, with average highs jumping to a staggering 3.35 degrees Fahrenheit (1.86 degrees Celsius) above the climatological average. Heat waves happen, and have happened before, but if they become more common, longer, hotter on average…

If the last time this happened was 1901 (but 1901 was hotter), it doesn't sound "more common"? It's literally more than 100 years since the last time this level of heat occurred. Sounds similar to 100-year floods?

My understanding is that 1901 wasn't particularly hot. They mention 1901 because that's when systematic collection of weather data began.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#174

Post by akrain » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 12:18 PM UTC

iknownothow wrote: post #156

Just a personal anecdote to provide some context of how hot it really is. I'm from the south of India and now live in Europe. My body tolerates heat quite well compared to my European friends. I remember tolerating 38-40C indoor temperatures and sleeping through it with heavy sweating. But air temperature of 42C is where I draw the line. It is almost biologically impossible to survive this. So this story isn't just a…

I live in a suburb of Delhi and to be honest it is not just the occasional days that it stays that high. This year it has consistently been above 40C since late March. Summer has just started and the hottest months are generally May and June. So, it is going stay like this for more than three months this year in all. Even worse is that unlike desert regions, even the night temperatures here stay above 30C many times during this part of the year. Sometimes you open the window at night expecting it to be better only to realize that a hot "breeze" is blowing.

Owing to the pandemic, I had spent the last couple of years in the foothills of the Himalaya where the temperature rarely went beyond 30C. It has been really hard coping up with the heat as it literally sucks the life out of you.

Ref: https://www.accuweather.com/en/in/delhi/202396/april-weather...

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#175

Post by ankit219 » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 12:18 PM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #120

sph wrote: post #26

> there are street vendors in major cities selling special fruit that supposedly helps protect people from the potentially damaging effects of above-normal temperatures. [...] "Instead of the regular synthetic fruits, you know, the ready-made fruit juice which is harm[ful] to the health, these are good for your health as well and these are the only way that you can manage the heat." What's this mysterious special fru…

I thought the rest of the article was equally lousy. Quoting Death Valley temperature as only “99F” to make a point that Delhi is really fricking hot at this time. Well, Death Valley currently isn’t at its peak temperature and the summer has barely begun. It’s also not experiencing a heat wave. The whole article appears to be GPT’ed.

It was weird how they brought in a climate change quote from a normal Chennai resident. I would have expected an expert to be quoted on that. I have no idea whether she is right or wrong, this year has seen a lot of anomaly, including both the poles heating up by 30C at the same time[1], and the researchers just called it anomaly and did not blame it on climate change. Probably just that kind of year, although you can never be sure.

[1]https://phys.org/news/2022-03-hot-poles-antarctica-arctic-de...

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#176

Post by natly » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 12:23 PM UTC

Bombthecat wrote: post #80

mangecoeur wrote: post #2

Climate change in action, only going to get worse.

Yes, and i dont see anyway to change it. It will just get worse and we will do nothing. I can see several million or even billion people die in the next 20 to 30 years.

You're being downvoted but this is pretty much what we should expect to happen (unless we take real action). A zero sum mess for livable spaces for some decades. I'm sure humanity will be awesome again in like 2300 once we get out of it and the wisdom of the mistakes are engrained in the new culture (it'd be wonderful to see).

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#177

Post by rayiner » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 12:25 PM UTC

distances wrote: post #121

sirius87 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see this being discussed or something any public figure has said as being considered. Various states in India are deprioritizing power supply to industries in favour of consumer household use. So domestic news is playing those "govt reduces power supply to industries by 50%" headlines. [1] Use of ACs and air coolers has skyrocketed the demand for power (38 year high), thereby increasing demand for Coal. Inter…

And is there any sentiment that this is caused by climate change, and coal phase out should be accelerated? I get the immediate need for electricity, but talk about increasing coal stocks sounds weird nonetheless in light of what the goals are now in Western countries.

Western efforts to avert climate change won’t succeed, certainly not in time to avoid the consequences of these heat waves, and India can’t afford to spend time or money on optical measures. Renewables are being phased in as they are cost effective, but India needs to invest in air conditioning now instead of uncertain mitigation efforts in the future.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#178

Post by WaxedChewbacca » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 12:28 PM UTC

Bombthecat wrote: post #80

mangecoeur wrote: post #2

Climate change in action, only going to get worse.

Yes, and i dont see anyway to change it. It will just get worse and we will do nothing. I can see several million or even billion people die in the next 20 to 30 years.

No post body was provided.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#179

Post by dgellow » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 12:28 PM UTC

pseudostem wrote: post #122

35mm wrote: post #65

Instead of relying solely on air conditioning, which often adds to greenhouse gas emissions if run on fossil power, there are a number of passive solar design strategies that work without additional energy: - Solar chimneys draw cool air in when it’s sunny via pressure differential - Building orientation along with natural shading from deciduous trees prevent excessive solar insolation heating the building - Building…

I deployed my own design (not calculated, eyeballed) of a buoyancy based passive cooling at my parents home near Mumbai, India. It did make a measured difference of approximately (temperature meters aren't very accurate) 2 degrees Celsius. I have been reading a lot in my spare time and your blog looks like a nice read. My point is, is 2 to 3 degrees Celsius enough? From what I read is that I need to really move very…

I’m not that familiar with hot temperatures but intuitively I would think that a difference of 2-3 degrees (Celsius) when temperatures are already high at around 40-45 to be noticeable.

For example if you go from 40°C to 37-38 that’s a quite good improvement if you don’t have to spend energy for this. I don’t know if that also applies to more extreme temperatures like 47°C, I cannot really imagine how that feels like.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#180

Post by jseban » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 12:31 PM UTC

OccamsRazr wrote: post #132

sschueller wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow this has been lost over the years. I can especially see this in Zürich Switzerland where new office buildings being built are awful and there seems little thinking about temperature. Everything is managed by complex air systems to move air from one area to the other. On the other hand you go into a 200+ year old building and you notice it's cool in summer although there is no air conditioning. The building is…

As someone who was in Europe for one of the heatwaves of recent years, and whose appartment was in one of these older buildings designed this ways with thick walls etc., I can attest that this only works up to a point . This design relies on there being cold air for the building to retain. However, in a heatwave it doesn't even get cold at night. The result is your apartment gradually heating over a period of days /…

Yeah it's a temporary effect and once the walls have heated up, it actually makes it worse since it retains the heat at nighttime as well.

You need to drill down to access the constant temperature in the ground, to be able to really counterbalance the differences in the air temperature. Once you've drilled down I guess you can make a passive or minimal energy circulation system that would be much more energy efficient than air conditioning.