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The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

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Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#131

Post by FrojoS »

ef4 wrote: post #98
danso wrote: post #12

This bit about how certain groups of people have somehow developed different responses to cold is fascinating: Were you a Norwegian fisherman or Inuit hunter, both of whom frequently work gloveless in the cold, your chilled hands would open their surface capillaries periodically to allow surges of warm blood to pass into them and maintain their flexibility. This phenomenon, known as the hunter's response, can elevate…

I saw a talk from a US Army-funded researchers on cold weather adaptation. He described how to reliably train oneself to induce the "hunter's response". You just go sit outside in the cold for five or ten minutes at a time while keeping your hands and/or feet submerged in insulated warm water. The goal is to expose most of your body to the cold while keeping the capillaries open. After about fifty repetitions of this…

As someone who does a lot of mountaineering, I'd be inclined to use this technique for my hands. But I'm a bit scared about risking to become hypothermic earlier. And I guess I would prefer to loos my toes then becoming severely hypothermic.

Though, I have recommended this technique several times to some female with very severe "cold hand" problems.

Btw: I think I've seen the same talk at MITOC Winter School. I forgot the name of the speaker but he was a great guy. (Quote: "If you can't bend them - that's a bad sign.") I think he speaks at MITOC every year.

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#132

Post by jeremycole »

funkaster wrote: post #80
UnFleshedOne wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do use kilocalorie that is defined with degrees of celsius though. It isn't as bad here, but unit mixing is extremely annoying in aviation books in canada. In the same chapter of "From The Ground Up" you can see nautical miles, statutory miles, multiples of thousands of feet for height (took me a while to realize a mile is not a multiple of 1000 feet, wtf?), degrees of celsius, pounds, kilograms, kilopascals, mi…

I also find it completely strange that here in the US people tend to use feet as a sub-division of miles, but the mile/foot relation is not trivial: 1 mile == 5280 feet. And why would you need so many units for length? mile, yard, feet, inch... All (apparently) unrelated. The metric system on the other hand, is so elegant and simple. Only one unit: meter.

They are related, just in somewhat strange ways.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile#Roman_mile

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#134

Post by raverbashing »

DanBC wrote: post #129
raverbashing wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today, in the age of gps enabled cell phones there is no reason to leave the car (unless there's a risk of explosion, car sliding off a cliff, etc, etc) Get your position, call 911, wait. If the signal is not good enough to make a call, send an SMS

What if the signal isn't good enough to send an SMS? I'd tend to agree that staying with the car is sensible. Maybe with some bright orange tarpaulin / flag thing over the car (although that'd probably get buried in snow.) At least if you're travelling in really bad weather you know you might get stuck and so you should prepare. People in England were caught out when light snow was forecast; they left work early and…

Then write your SMS, try sending it and try exploring different positions (maybe try exiting the car, or even climb it). Just don't wander away from it.

In my experience, the phone will retry sending the SMS a couple of times if the signal is low.

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#135

Post by [deleted] »

DanBC wrote: post #129
raverbashing wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today, in the age of gps enabled cell phones there is no reason to leave the car (unless there's a risk of explosion, car sliding off a cliff, etc, etc) Get your position, call 911, wait. If the signal is not good enough to make a call, send an SMS

What if the signal isn't good enough to send an SMS? I'd tend to agree that staying with the car is sensible. Maybe with some bright orange tarpaulin / flag thing over the car (although that'd probably get buried in snow.) At least if you're travelling in really bad weather you know you might get stuck and so you should prepare. People in England were caught out when light snow was forecast; they left work early and…

[deleted]

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#136

Post by hfsktr »

TheCapn wrote: post #100
jablan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, has anybody created a decent userscript or browser extension to fight this problem yet? I had no luck searching for one.

If you're quick at math here's a fairly accurate way: F->C: Subtract 30, divide by 2. C->F: Double it & Add 30. Often known as the "Bob & Doug McKenzie method" from around here it makes for fast conversions since the actual conversion (°F - 32) * 5 / 9 = °C is close enough when dealing in the normal temperature range of weather.

That's really interesting and something I will have to remember. My friend is from the UK so when we talk about temps (they don't get the winter we get in my area of the US) I try to convert it.

I've been counting along increments of 1.5 in whichever direction from 0 C or 32 F.

I probably made it a .5 for mental calculating.

Just out of curiosity I tried yours and it even works with minus temperatures, although a bit confusing at first.

Yours are exactly the reason I read the comments on posts.

edit: to make it a bit clearer

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#137

Post by jzwinck »

Sam_Odio wrote: post #71

I carry a PLB at all times in my vehicle [1]. In the US this device will summon rescue via satellite. I recommend it for anyone who spends time in remote areas. If you value your life at $1MM and there's a 1 in 3500 chance [2] that summoning emergency services in a remote area will save your life then this is a helpful risk-mitigating tool [3]. 1. http://www.amazon.com/ACR-Electronics-ResQLink-Personal-Loca... 2. $28…

Your statistics are seriously flawed. For example, your math in point 2 assumes you will certainly find yourself in a life threatening situation while carrying the device. And your point 3 probably vastly overestimates the fraction of life-or-death calls.

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#138

Post by Arelius »

astral303 wrote: post #32
freehunter wrote: post #8

Living in Michigan, this is one of my biggest fears. Due to the massive lakes that surround us, we frequently get a blast of warm, wet air that causes rain, and of course that warm wet air is being pushed off the lake by a cold front, causing high winds and sub-freezing temps. This combined with large stands of farmland and no trees for windrows means wind blows right across the road and freezes the rain instantly, s…

The conditions you describe are tough. Going off the road in an ice storm sucks. Love your CB and snow suit suggestions. The following is not commentary on your situation, but tips to reduce chance of getting stuck: 1. I strongly recommend running a set of good snow tires, no matter whether you have an AWD Subaru or a 4x4 truck or a FWD Corolla. Yes, truck snow tires exist. The reason is that the rubber compound is m…

> The reason has to do with weight transfer. Your car's traction at each end is determined by the amount of weight. When you accelerate, you decrease traction up front and you increase traction in the rear. Lifting off throttle increases front end traction and decreases rear end traction, a little. Hitting the brakes massively decreases rear end traction and massively increases front end bite.

While this contributes to the effect, it's does not properly represent what's actually going on. Generally speaking, you want to perform action that normalizes the speed of the tires and the wheels, as you said, this is basically never breaking because wheels are good at slowing themselves down. If the slide is caused by slow tires, or if the tires have time to slow while the slide is happening (The most common case, and also the one that is caused by hitting the e-brake) Then indeed, as you said applying gas is the proper action. But compare this to a slide caused by wheel-spin due to too much gas, Any additional application of gas will just make the problem worse.

Having said that, if you do find yourself in a slide caused by too much gas, hitting the brakes will almost always make it worse, instead lightening up on the gas, and then slowly reapplying tends to be the most effective strategy.

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#139

Post by Arelius »

fest wrote: post #130
astral303 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conditions you describe are tough. Going off the road in an ice storm sucks. Love your CB and snow suit suggestions. The following is not commentary on your situation, but tips to reduce chance of getting stuck: 1. I strongly recommend running a set of good snow tires, no matter whether you have an AWD Subaru or a 4x4 truck or a FWD Corolla. Yes, truck snow tires exist. The reason is that the rubber compound is m…

> you will learn that it is "C", applying gas, which will get > you back in line the soonest. You will notice that as soon > as you give it gas, the spin will stop or slow down > significantly. That only helps with more common, oversteer situations (when the rear wheels are skidding). On the contrary, if you're experiencing an understeer (front wheels are skidding) applying more gas will only make matters worse. You…

> A tiny little bit of braking may be neccessary.

While it's true that braking can be very helpful, I'd caution against suggesting it because braking during a slide, even while it's understeer caused, can be very delicate and easy to overdo. And releasing the gas will quite often normalize the difference quite fast enough.

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