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Wet-bulb temperature

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Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#11

Post by mrjaeger »

studmuffin650 wrote: post #2

in my opinion, a lot of folks won't take climate change seriously until it adversely affects their way of life in such a dramatic way that they cannot deny it any longer. A wet bulb event, occuring over multiple hours, would be that signal. Piles of dead bodies from folks who either were misinformed or weren't able to move to safety would be quite the wake up call.

That's actually the inciting incident for the cli-fi book "The Ministry for the Future". Overall I really enjoyed the book, was a good mix of interesting economic/policy ideas interwoven through a compelling character based narrative.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#12

Post by samcheng »

If you haven’t read it yet, the first section of Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson describes a wet-bulb event in striking detail. The horror of this climate-change catastrophe is what finally triggers a significant global cultural shift around climate change.

The passage was vivid enough for me to suggest preparatory measures to my retired parents. I wholeheartedly recommend the book to anyone interested in near-term climate impact!

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#13

Post by gaulish »

whycome wrote: post #9
studmuffin650 wrote: post #2

in my opinion, a lot of folks won't take climate change seriously until it adversely affects their way of life in such a dramatic way that they cannot deny it any longer. A wet bulb event, occuring over multiple hours, would be that signal. Piles of dead bodies from folks who either were misinformed or weren't able to move to safety would be quite the wake up call.

The 1896 New York heat wave lasted 10 days and killed ~1500 people. And has just 2 short paragraphs in Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Eastern_North_America_hea... ) > "This was 10 days [with temperatures reaching] 90 degrees at street level and 90 percent humidity, with temperatures not even dropping at night," https://www.npr.org/2010/08/11/129127924/the-heat-wave-of-18... It wasn't necessarily a wak…

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Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#14

Post by hkpack »

studmuffin650 wrote: post #2

in my opinion, a lot of folks won't take climate change seriously until it adversely affects their way of life in such a dramatic way that they cannot deny it any longer. A wet bulb event, occuring over multiple hours, would be that signal. Piles of dead bodies from folks who either were misinformed or weren't able to move to safety would be quite the wake up call.

> in my opinion, a lot of folks won't take climate change seriously until it adversely affects their way of life in such a dramatic way that they cannot deny it any longer.

It won't. People you are talking about have access to air conditioning. They will not care about people dying in distant places, whom become an annoyance after a while. They will just wish people die silently without complaining.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#15

Post by gaulish »

no_wizard wrote: post #8
lukevp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Temperature and humidity are high enough that you can’t cool off naturally via sweat. I would suspect most people don’t realize that’s even a thing. I’m from Texas, and everyone thinks they’re heat adapted and tries to act macho. A lot of people would just stay outside and keep working, ignoring any warnings they received.

In part, I'm sure culture in this particular instance is partly to blame here. That said, in more general terms, this is a relatively new concern for many people, even in Texas or Arizona, where these wet bulb events were rare. All told, I can understand how people really don't grok it because 10+ years ago, they could keep working in the heat taking relatively simple precautions. However since 2021 web bulb events h…

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Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#16

Post by truculent »

gaulish wrote: post #13
whycome wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1896 New York heat wave lasted 10 days and killed ~1500 people. And has just 2 short paragraphs in Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Eastern_North_America_hea... ) > "This was 10 days [with temperatures reaching] 90 degrees at street level and 90 percent humidity, with temperatures not even dropping at night," https://www.npr.org/2010/08/11/129127924/the-heat-wave-of-18... It wasn't necessarily a wak…

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Wouldn’t the rain today spit in the idea of so-called “summer”?

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#17

Post by gorbypark »

I worked as a snowmaker at ski resorts for most my my adult life before getting into tech. We always use wet bulb temperatures because it’s a representation of temperature and humidity. With extremely low humidity, you can actually make manmade snow at about +3 degrees Celsius. That was always fun but scary, because a small change in humidity can turn snowguns into water guns in the blink of an eye.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#18

Post by nonethewiser »

studmuffin650 wrote: post #2

in my opinion, a lot of folks won't take climate change seriously until it adversely affects their way of life in such a dramatic way that they cannot deny it any longer. A wet bulb event, occuring over multiple hours, would be that signal. Piles of dead bodies from folks who either were misinformed or weren't able to move to safety would be quite the wake up call.

But think about the solution. It's making A/C very accessible and reliable. That requires cheap energy with a high-uptime grid. There are many ways to solve this problem but adding difficult to meet constraints to energy companies that risk price and availability is not one of them.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#19

Post by __alexs »

gaulish wrote: post #13
whycome wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1896 New York heat wave lasted 10 days and killed ~1500 people. And has just 2 short paragraphs in Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Eastern_North_America_hea... ) > "This was 10 days [with temperatures reaching] 90 degrees at street level and 90 percent humidity, with temperatures not even dropping at night," https://www.npr.org/2010/08/11/129127924/the-heat-wave-of-18... It wasn't necessarily a wak…

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If a thing that used to be a 1 in 100 year event starts happening every 10 years and all the science says it's because of man made climate change then yeah we can totally do things to make it go back to happening once every 100 years again.

Re: Wet-bulb temperature

#20

Post by truculent »

irdc wrote: post #4
hiatus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is a "wet bulb event"?

A wet bulb event occurs when the combined temperature and humidity (the so called "wet bulb temperature") exceeds the limits of human physiology, causing humans to overheat and perish even in the absence of any activity beyond basal metabolism. I'm not sure it'd look like the "bodies in the street" image GP likes to call up, but yes, a prolonged wet bulb event would result in mass casualties.

Earnest question: what makes you doubt the depiction? Trust in infrastructure or institutions?
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