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Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

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Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#261

Post by btbuildem »

Qwertious wrote: post #143
chasil wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to our current icehouse phase, plants have thrived during intense greenhouse periods of global climate. "Earth has been in a greenhouse state for about 85% of its history... Earth is now in an icehouse state, and ice sheets are present in both poles simultaneously." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Eart...

The earth is 4.5 billion years old. Over those billions of years, the sun has gotten ~40% hotter, which counteracted the reduced atmospheric greenhouse effect. We can't directly compare our current climate to billions of years ago with just atmospheric conditions. Also, I notice you said "plants have thrived", and not "major staple crops have thrived". Toxic algae bloom has its own sort of natural beauty I guess, but…

Also, there's far less area of land near the poles, despite of what Mercator would have us believe.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#262

Post by dreamcompiler »

donatj wrote: post #82
jijijijij wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not understand the issue at hand. Whatever you experienced was way less severe, because evaporative cooling obviously was still possible. There is a point where you simply cannot cool yourself passively. That's the point where survival is at risk regardless of health. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

Having a rag of cold water on you will cool you regardless of evaporation. It is a thing that is cooler than the environment. The water from our taps at least is a pretty constant like 50°F

What you describe is not universal. I recommend you visit Phoenix in July and open a "cold" water tap.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#263

Post by nozzlegear »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #57
infotainment wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this was the plot of the movie Snowpiercer . I would be a bit worried about accidental side effects; atmospheric alteration on a large scale seems like a dangerous game.

And book Termination Shock. One Billionaire took it upon himself to seed sulfur in upper atmosphere. And Not for global warming, but in The Matrix, humans darkened the skies to fight the machines.

Termination Shock is an excellent book, I'd highly recommend it if you're interested in the genre of "climate fiction" as I am. It deals with the effects of extreme heat in Texas; the rising sea levels in the Netherlands; how unpredictable weather patterns could affect the bread basket of India and the people living there; and much more. Easily one of my favorite books of the last few years.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#264

Post by dreamcompiler »

whycombagator wrote: post #158
donatj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up poor and without AC in Minnesota where we regularly get spells of 100°F+ (37.7°C) at VERY high humidity thanks to all the lakes. It’s survivable, it’s absolutely not pleasant though and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Fans and wet rags help some. I used to fill a 2-liter bottle with cold water and hold it against my chest. A lot of sleepless nights. When we got a local second run $2 movie theater, it was a li…

I don’t think of Minnesota as a place where 100f+ occurs with regularity or for sustained periods. A brief search confirms my assumptions, but I’m happy to be proven otherwise. There are parts of the US where 100f is reached by midday and persists past sunset for over a month, with high humidity.

Like Dallas in 2023, for example.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2023/11/05/2023-texas-summer...

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#265

Post by rstuart4133 »

bloomingeek wrote: post #108
mr_person wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. Its disgusting. I am also a grumpy fart right now because the night time temperature has not dropped below 20degrees since, like, November[1]. If I tried to aircon that like I do most of the day time, I would wake up a sinusy coughing mess... Sure, 30degrees and 90+ humidity is survivable, but only just. [1] https://7news.com.au/news/brisbane-set-to-break-record-of-da...

And how could you get any work done? I worked in the oilfields when I was in my early twenty's, if the temp was over 100F, less work got done because we didn't want to die. I knew men who got heat stroke, they were never the same again. I myself got heat exhaustion several times, it took a few days to recover. Our bodies can only take so much, no matter how tough you are, wet rags and frequent breaks don't always wor…

I also live in Brisbane, ie same area. Two examples of getting work done:

1. I was happing working in 36°C in November, but the temperature dropped to around 30°C after December and the humidity went up to near 100%. I got saturated in my own sweat on 50 meter walk to the work site. I worked outside for 1 hour stints, then retreated to aircon.

2. But not everyone could do that ... and in Brisbane, they died on the job. https://qnt.cfmeu.org/news/workers-walk-cross-river-rail-aft... I'm 64 and never head of seen of such a thing happening locally before. Remember, this is in Australia, a rich first world country, aircon everywhere, with some of the best medical resources on the planet (free).

On the news they were tell us we are seeing higher sustained humidity that Singapore, with higher temperatures. The government weather bureau predicted 20mm of rain over one night, and we got 200mm. Their explanation is while they have over 100 years of data, they had never seen this much moisture in the air before and so their models were untrained.

The Bureau said driver behind this is we get most of our moisture / rain fall from the Coral Sea, which is part of the Pacific. The El Nino on top of global warming has driven sea surface temperatures 1.5°C above normal. 1.5° - it sounds so small. What is terrifying is it is small. At the same time in Newfoundland the sea temperature was 8.5°C above normal. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/07/28/ocean-temp... I guess the only reason people are still alive there in the average temperature is lower.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#267

Post by bongodongobob »

MisterTea wrote: post #176
bongodongobob wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're allergic to air conditioning? I don't understand.

AC's tend to build up a lot of mold which grows in the condensation and blows it around. People with sinus and allergy issues get stuffy and inflamed. This is why I avoid using the AC and prefer a fan along with opening a window.

That's not normal, your AC is broken or has a plug in the drain if it's a window mount unit.

If it's central air, you're just mistaken.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#268

Post by AtlasBarfed »

no_wizard wrote: post #171
jijijijij wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Also radiative cooling. Lawns literally suck here too, we need more trees and bushes, biomass fixation, in personal homes, for shade and drought resistance. And massive, diverse reforestation to replete ground water reserves and stabilize the local weather. We also need to massively invest in poor countries' ability to survive too. Or else conflicts will spread to us regardless of our own resilience.

I'm convinced that there is a contingent in society that has crossed both side of the political spectrum that is increasingly less empathetic to assisting poorer regions of the world as the negative effects of climate change start setting in, and its only going to grow Its anecdotal, but my very progressive friends (think: Bernie Sanders type voters) have over time subtly started expressing opinions that are regressi…

The world is definitely going to heavily deglobalize. Globalization of general trade piggybacked specifically on the US Navy securing petroleum shipping.

With the bakken shake and alternate energy vastly decreasing the geopolitical significance of oil shipping, and the possible demographic and totalitarian collapse of China, manufacturing will near shore in the coming decades.

If the human race was capable of proactively mitigating global warming effects on the poor, it would be capable of mitigating global warming itself. Since we cannot, the poor are going to be some object to a simpler, cruel calculus.

We saw this in the Syrian crisis which is about 1/100 the scale of probable displacements to come

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#269

Post by seoulmetro »

cromulent wrote: post #2

A friend of mine who lives in Queensland (Sunshine Coast) was talking about a recent spell of 32° and 100% humidity and how oppressive it was. My understanding is that such weather is not survivable long term [1] without air conditioning. A power failure would be disastrous. [1] https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/humans-cant-endure-t...

I don't believe the Sunshine Coast ever reaches 100% humidity unless it's raining, which cools the region.

The sun does a great job at making sure humidity is at least always below 80%.

Also, those temperatures are very tolerable for most people, in most of Australia. It's just that they're uncomfortable.

Re: Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

#270

Post by richrichie »

Faaak wrote: post #200
richrichie wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You should read the IPCC reports, educate yourself on how it works overall, before saying absurdities like this one :).

I have read 5 and whatever is available on 6. I am good friends with a reviewer for the technical section.

IPCC is a “governmental” report that is driven by political and big money interests. The tech section is nothing close to a honest, blind review of science that exists.

If you take IPCC as a gospel of climate science, you, sir, are naive about the workings of the real world where money interacts.

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