[flagged]
Wet-bulb temperature
41–50 of 183 posts
Re: Wet-bulb temperature
#42If 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 intereste…
> wet-bulb event It's probably already too late, but I keep seeing people confusing the concept of "web bulb temperature" (all temperatures have a wet bulb temperature, even ones very pleasant for people) with "the human survivable maximum wet bulb". I frequently see people saying things like "when we reach wet bulb temps..", which feels a bit silly. This always feels like talking about a "Kelvin event" or "Kelvin te…
> This always feels like talking about a "Kelvin event" or "Kelvin temps" referring a temperature reaching absolute zero.
Reminds me of Ex Astris Scientia complaining about bad script writing in Enterprise, specifically "deuterium can burn almost as hot as plasma, when it's ignited": https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/episodes/ent2.htm
Re: Wet-bulb temperature
#43If 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 intereste…
I stopped reading it because the premise is entirely unbelievable. A mass casualty event of pretty much any size would not lead us to do anything about climate change. For evidence, look at the deaths in the USA from gives and cars every year . Yet there is zero momentum toward doing anything about those from a policy standpoint.
In the book, the Indian government takes unilateral action to cool the planet (spraying reflectants into the upper atmosphere, iirc) after the heat wave kills 20 million Indian people in the space of a few days - a few weeks. Given the fractious state of international politics and the urgency of the problem, this seems like a fairly realistic depiction of how efforts to cool the planet might commence IRL.
Re: Wet-bulb temperature
#44If 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 intereste…
I hate speaking negatively about Ministry for the Future, because I admire KSR, and we need fiction that confronts the climate crisis and shows people taking positive action to change the world for the better. Still, I sadly cannot recommend this book. To quote from my spoileriffic review, "This does not help us imagine realistic positive outcomes to the climate crisis. Robinson correctly diagnoses the threats we fac…
Yes. Thank you. His book Aurora does a much better job at steering us towards action while still showing consequences of environmental disaster and I highly recommend it.
Re: Wet-bulb temperature
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate speaking negatively about Ministry for the Future, because I admire KSR, and we need fiction that confronts the climate crisis and shows people taking positive action to change the world for the better. Still, I sadly cannot recommend this book. To quote from my spoileriffic review, "This does not help us imagine realistic positive outcomes to the climate crisis. Robinson correctly diagnoses the threats we fac…
Can't agree more. The wet bulb event chapter is definitely worth a read, though. The sad reality is that the world's actual response to something like that happening will probably be about as disappointing and anticlimactic as the rest of the book was to read.
If the comment sections on any news story about e.g. the Maui fire or any other natural disaster are an indication - the world's response will be hyperpartisan conspiracy mongering involving random rich people (Oprah, Zuckerberg and Obama in Maui), shady groups of profiteers (developers and clean energy installers), and fictional tech (directed energy weapons and various "lasers) rather than the shortest moment of introspection.
Re: Wet-bulb temperature
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> wet-bulb event It's probably already too late, but I keep seeing people confusing the concept of "web bulb temperature" (all temperatures have a wet bulb temperature, even ones very pleasant for people) with "the human survivable maximum wet bulb". I frequently see people saying things like "when we reach wet bulb temps..", which feels a bit silly. This always feels like talking about a "Kelvin event" or "Kelvin te…
> This always feels like talking about a "Kelvin event" or "Kelvin temps" referring a temperature reaching absolute zero. Reminds me of Ex Astris Scientia complaining about bad script writing in Enterprise, specifically "deuterium can burn almost as hot as plasma, when it's ignited": https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/episodes/ent2.htm
Bad science in Star Trek? Perish the thought.
Re: Wet-bulb temperature
#47If 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 intereste…
I hate speaking negatively about Ministry for the Future, because I admire KSR, and we need fiction that confronts the climate crisis and shows people taking positive action to change the world for the better. Still, I sadly cannot recommend this book. To quote from my spoileriffic review, "This does not help us imagine realistic positive outcomes to the climate crisis. Robinson correctly diagnoses the threats we fac…
You might enjoy the monk and robot series from Becky Chambers in case that you’re looking for something more hopeful.
Re: Wet-bulb temperature
#48in 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.
People will need to start thinking of the summer months in some places like the winter months in others: during certain periods you need shelter with working HVAC systems, and when you go outside you need suitable gear and emergency arrangements. I live in the Chicago area, and in the winter working from my heated home and traveling between heated places in my heated car, it's sometimes possible to forget how uninhab…
The one key difference is, in cold climates we heat our spaces and any heat that "leaks out" or is otherwise incidental is absorbed by the cold outside.
In the hot climates, we cool our spaces, but in the process we pump extra heat outside, making it warmer when it's already too warm.
Re: Wet-bulb temperature
#49in 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.
Some people have fantasies about these heatwaves that just decimate all living things. It’s not that simple. It’s not THAT hard to cool down even if you’re incapable of sweating to do so. People aren’t idiots either. Despite imaginations of cultural hubris, people can tell when it’s deathly, disgustingly hot, and do not casually tank it until they die. And even if they did, they’re not idiots. If one person collapses…
> It’s not THAT hard to cool down even if you’re incapable of sweating to do so.
How would you recommend cooling down for hundreds of thousands of people at a time? I have to assume that those affected wouldn't have easy access to AC.
Re: Wet-bulb temperature
#50If 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 intereste…
I hate speaking negatively about Ministry for the Future, because I admire KSR, and we need fiction that confronts the climate crisis and shows people taking positive action to change the world for the better. Still, I sadly cannot recommend this book. To quote from my spoileriffic review, "This does not help us imagine realistic positive outcomes to the climate crisis. Robinson correctly diagnoses the threats we fac…
Crucially, after it tip goes into the complexity of global diplomacy and consensus building, a special black ops team of super eco-terrorists effect the change that really needs to happen. It’s right at home with right-wing military fantasy, Frederick Forsyth-“to bear the baddies we need to be worse than the worst of em” silliness