Recommended reading about the topic of climate change and wet bulb temperatures:
Kim Stanley Robinson's novel "The Ministry for the Future".
Here's the blurb from goodreads:
Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organization was simple: To advocate for the world's future generations and to protect all living creatures, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its story.
From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined.
Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry For The Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come.
Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
It is a novel both immediate and impactful, desperate and hopeful in equal measure, and it is one of the most powerful and original books on climate change ever written.
If I understand this right, this is not just the heat, but the humidity as well. The UK Daily Telegraph had an article[1] about how nearby Jacobabad crossed the 35C wet bulb reading threshold, at which point — according to the article — the body can no longer cool itself.
I assume Karachi isn’t that bad yet. A cursory Google search showed a wet bulb reading of 27C for Karachi — still very hot but not life-threateningly so. In fact, the Telegraph article notes that those who can afford it spend the summer in Quetta or Karachi.
Of course this article also focuses on the cost of electricity and air conditioning, which is a major factor as well.
Weather or climate? Weather is incidental. In terms of climate, further increases for decades are locked in from past emissions we can't change.
For the present, at each moment, we can choose to contribute to further suffering or not. As you mentioned, it's becoming life-threatening.
Exactly two things work: reducing our consumption and reducing our birth rate. Mechai Viravaidya in Thailand showed how to reduce birth rate in the opposite of China's One Child policy or eugenics -- that is, voluntary, noncoercive, even fun -- as did Costa Rica, Iran, and several other countries. Most Americans can improve their quality of life by lowering consumption. I reduced mine over 90% with just life improvements. I estimate most Americans can reduce theirs 80% or more without sacrifice, just improvements. The most polluting can probably reduce theirs 99%.
Systemic change begins with personal transformation. Government and corporations will follow individual action, as they historically have. Personal transformation enables us to lead others. Leading others has the biggest effect because it multiplies.
To act here and now, the most important thing we can do is to learn leadership skills to lead ourselves and others.
> The UK Daily Telegraph had an article about how nearby Jacobabad crossed the 35C wet bulb reading threshold, at which point — according to the article — the body can no longer cool itself.
Not quite. At 35C, the body can no longer maintain a normal body temperature, and simply standing outside in the shade will cause everyone to run a fever. However, a degree of fever is not dangerous in otherwise healthy individuals. So at 35C people can cool themselves, but only at an elevated temperature.
However, add a degree above that, and all the elderly and infirm will die. Add two degrees, and even healthy people start dropping like flies.
Humidity is the killer at those temperature ranges. Here we got a bit of a micro-climate because of large bodies of water and whenever temperature goes past 25ºC it's already highly uncomfortable, whereas 25ºC in other parts of the country, even the ones known as hot, is rather comfortable. Just a couple kilometers north, 35ºC are barely noticeable in comparison, even under the sun. (Sure makes your skin burn with all the fury of Helios, but it doesn't make you dizzy and tired like a high humidity area does at much lower temps)
Our highest registered temperature was an exceptional peak of 52ºC for two days. Was a bit of a massacre, specially on elders. There's no record of those days publicly for some reason, but all locals remember it well.
The high humidity saturation seems to negatively affect evaporation of sweat, making you constantly drenched even with no clothes on. It's a kind of hell you can't escape, only hope it passes soon.
The issue with wet bulb temperature is even worse.
You don't need to have an average to hit anywhere close to it.
Just one single event, wave of temperature over 36 degrees is most likely going to kill millions of people if it hits densely populated area with people having no infrastructure to cool themselves. And no, spraying with water will not help, by very definition.
The problem is that you can't easily move hundreds of millions of people.
When the weather becomes lethal, these people are going to die.
The only realistic solution is building infrastructure to let people live through the worst of the weather.
If it is as bad as it is described in the article, I worry about long term prospects of stable economy and progress, what with people occupied mostly with trying to survive another hellish day.
If by norm you mean the slope, yes. If you meant the y intercept, no. Soon it will be hotter. In Karachi and where you live too.
To change the slope, exactly two things work: reducing our consumption and reducing our birth rate. Mechai Viravaidya in Thailand showed how to reduce birth rate in the opposite of China's One Child policy or eugenics -- that is, voluntary, noncoercive, even fun -- as did Costa Rica, Iran, and several other countries. Most Americans can improve their quality of life by lowering consumption. I reduced mine over 90% with just life improvements. I estimate most Americans can reduce theirs 80% or more without sacrifice, just improvements. The most polluting can probably reduce theirs 99%.
Systemic change begins with personal transformation. Government and corporations will follow individual action, as they historically have. Personal transformation enables us to lead others. Leading others has the biggest effect because it multiplies.
> Despite that, I believe Canada will be a major recipient of these climate refugees when places just get too hot to live in.
In what sense would these people be climate refugees rather than infrastructure refugees? What percentage of Canada's population can survive in Canada without canada's infrastructure ?
If you read the article, a major problem the author is complaining about is the infrastructure:
> The electricity problems make it worse. The load-shedding comes during summer months and, these days, often falls in Ramadan, when people can’t drink water.
I used to think that climate change won’t be so bad for the northern countries, as they are colder anyway, with perhaps some more extreme weather. Now it seems more and more that all countries will be affected. Even northern ones, with occasional crazy heat waves.
In BC, Canada the Heat record was broken by almost 5C.
> And it’s getting worse. Now it goes above 40C on an average day, and the intensity of the heat is different to when I was growing up in the city; the sunlight’s brighter, more piercing.
Are we going to have to start living underground? I went to Beer Caves [0] in the UK recently, where I was told that no matter the outside temperature it was always a consistent temperature within the caves (which was great for mushroom farming in the caves).
Obviously living in a cave is not great, but properly built underground habitats?
Flooding is a major problem with underground construction. Not the best as the ocean level rises. Air circulation is also a mess, because CO2 is heavier than oxygen. Evacuating a tall building is relatively easy; most people can go downstairs without a huge issue. Fleeing upstairs, on the other hand, is something fewer people can do. And once you get a blockade of people who can't make it, even the healthiest can get trapped.
Underground does sound promising but doing it at scale for a large number of people… I wonder how viable that is, and if it’ll cause structural issues at the surface. Also in this specific case they may need dehumidifiers.
The other option is heat pumps that exchange heat with the ground. These are slowly becoming more popular in the UK, for instance, but aren’t cheap.
I live where it is 30C during summer (low humidity) and about 10C during winter - Mediterranean climate thanks to proximity to the two oceans (Atlantic/Indian) which differs in temperature.
One of the main reasons why I would never move to another part of the country.
Unless I see resonantly well documented rising temperatures, I'm not inclined to believe that there are climate extremes any different from what are normal variations. ( and no this does not mean we get a free pass to mess up the environment, which IMO need to be cleaned up big time).
People have very short memories, and often it is the _current_ summer/winter that appears to be the harshest to them, not the one that happened 20 years ago. Memories are even more shorter when it is generational.
There are well-documented rising temperatures. TBH, it sounds like you've made up your mind and are unwilling to examine the mounds of evidence that exist to support that. This visualization from NASA directly contradicts any notion of a generational memory explanation:
As a bonus, it also demonstrates that climate != weather. Even as the whole map is turning red, there's still a few cooler spots in any given year. There's just less and less.
The tone of so many articles and comments online seems to be "Shrug, not much we can do about it". Or pedantically arguing about minutia.
Between this and the pandemic response in so many places, I'm not so sure humanity is going to be around in a century or two.
The rich will live in climate controlled domes on remote islands or ships, while billions of people starve, overheat, or fight over scraps. The global "elite" rich have a serious blind-spot though: They never seem to realize that they rely on a massive robust web of interconnected humanity to support their wealth and privilege. From billions of farmers, miners, craftspeople, teachers, to workers of all types, the global rich live at the top of a massive pyramid of humanity.
Makes me wonder if the person who is desperately trying to bootstrap a society on Mars has the right idea...
Sorry for a depressing comment. It's sobering to know that despite having another 50 years or so of life left to live, I will probably die in a food riot or from home invaders looking for water and food.
> The global "elite" rich have a serious blind-spot though: They never seem to realize that they rely on a massive robust web of interconnected humanity to support their wealth and privilege.
I'm not particularly convinced of this line of argumentation. The amount of hubris and ignorance required would be truly astonishing. My take, based on misc readings from folks who have one foot in said world, is that the global elite rich are absolutely aware of this.
Furthermore, they're actively debating the problem for the simple reason of self-preservation. They want to keep their station in life: their in-groups, all their "toys", etc. They are viscerally aware of the growing disillusioned on all sides of the spectrum and an increasing willingness of the disenchanted to burn it down instead of playing what is perceived (rightly?) to be a rigged game.
Overall, it's hardly benevolent, and questionably competent. Some individuals most certainly are both; some far from either. Regardless, I do believe that sheer greed alone will mean they'll be throwing themselves as these problems if only to keep some semblance of the "good ol' days".
I'm pretty sure the elite are going to meet their reckoning long before they get to live in climate controlled domes. It's going to make the French Revolution look like a pillow fight.
I don't reallly think we're even at a real risk of actual extinction though. We as a species have gone through far more traumatic climate change in the past. Modern civilisation might collapse but humanity before the hubris of the state and capital - hunter gatherers and nomads will just continue business as always. Even many modern anemeties might be able to persist using more decentralised and sustainable fabrication methods. We will have to make up for the breakdown of those supply chains but there are many alternatives to modern electronics that are not being persued because the status quo is currently more economical.
Hopefuly, the next iteration of civilisation will do a better job of stewardship with the planet instead of being a pest.
"serious blind-spot though"
Historically I think you are correct. The barbarians at the gates could topple any elite before this one.
However, I think there is an even bigger blind-spot in the general population: technology.
We have a level of technology such that aggression and basic necessities can be quite easily produced with few people (drones, modern agriculture etc). They are not as dependent on us as previous elites. I think they know that when they fly to New Zealand they can keep all the refugees out quite easily, while maintaining a life with as much comfort as today.
According to this site, there are numerous areas of Pakistan with a wet-bulb temp well north of 35C...that seems extremely dire, and should probably not be flippantly dismissed because other places are hotter.
> Stop complaining about the hot weather please and focus on more pressing global issues.
What would those more pressing issues be? Soon enough many very populated places in the world will be unlivable. Even now the reality described in the piece is shocking - 330 GBP for a month's worth of power is way more than what I pay in the Netherlands during the coldest winter months. I imagine the vast majority of Pakistanis will never be able to afford the amount of electricity needed to cool their houses down to a bearable temperature.
This comment was dead, and I expect it to be unpopular (the sentiment always is) - but I'm vouching for it because by linking some data it's at least as substantive as the submission, regardless of whether it's right or wrong.
Tepix|4 years ago
Kim Stanley Robinson's novel "The Ministry for the Future".
Here's the blurb from goodreads:
Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organization was simple: To advocate for the world's future generations and to protect all living creatures, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its story.
From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined.
Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry For The Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come.
Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
It is a novel both immediate and impactful, desperate and hopeful in equal measure, and it is one of the most powerful and original books on climate change ever written.
signal11|4 years ago
I assume Karachi isn’t that bad yet. A cursory Google search showed a wet bulb reading of 27C for Karachi — still very hot but not life-threateningly so. In fact, the Telegraph article notes that those who can afford it spend the summer in Quetta or Karachi.
Of course this article also focuses on the cost of electricity and air conditioning, which is a major factor as well.
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...
spodek|4 years ago
Weather or climate? Weather is incidental. In terms of climate, further increases for decades are locked in from past emissions we can't change.
For the present, at each moment, we can choose to contribute to further suffering or not. As you mentioned, it's becoming life-threatening.
Exactly two things work: reducing our consumption and reducing our birth rate. Mechai Viravaidya in Thailand showed how to reduce birth rate in the opposite of China's One Child policy or eugenics -- that is, voluntary, noncoercive, even fun -- as did Costa Rica, Iran, and several other countries. Most Americans can improve their quality of life by lowering consumption. I reduced mine over 90% with just life improvements. I estimate most Americans can reduce theirs 80% or more without sacrifice, just improvements. The most polluting can probably reduce theirs 99%.
Systemic change begins with personal transformation. Government and corporations will follow individual action, as they historically have. Personal transformation enables us to lead others. Leading others has the biggest effect because it multiplies.
To act here and now, the most important thing we can do is to learn leadership skills to lead ourselves and others.
Tuna-Fish|4 years ago
Not quite. At 35C, the body can no longer maintain a normal body temperature, and simply standing outside in the shade will cause everyone to run a fever. However, a degree of fever is not dangerous in otherwise healthy individuals. So at 35C people can cool themselves, but only at an elevated temperature.
However, add a degree above that, and all the elderly and infirm will die. Add two degrees, and even healthy people start dropping like flies.
falsaberN1|4 years ago
Our highest registered temperature was an exceptional peak of 52ºC for two days. Was a bit of a massacre, specially on elders. There's no record of those days publicly for some reason, but all locals remember it well.
The high humidity saturation seems to negatively affect evaporation of sweat, making you constantly drenched even with no clothes on. It's a kind of hell you can't escape, only hope it passes soon.
lmilcin|4 years ago
You don't need to have an average to hit anywhere close to it.
Just one single event, wave of temperature over 36 degrees is most likely going to kill millions of people if it hits densely populated area with people having no infrastructure to cool themselves. And no, spraying with water will not help, by very definition.
paulcole|4 years ago
Hot is hot.
cr1895|4 years ago
This site is showing quite a bit higher than 27C wet-bulb temp:
https://meteologix.com/pk/observations/pakistan/wet-bulb-tem...
MomoXenosaga|4 years ago
imtringued|4 years ago
breitling|4 years ago
Even in Canada, we are breaking records for heat. Temperatures have reached 49 C / 120 F
Despite that, I believe Canada will be a major recipient of these climate refugees when places just get too hot to live in.
That'll also be an option reserved for the privileged.
lmilcin|4 years ago
When the weather becomes lethal, these people are going to die.
The only realistic solution is building infrastructure to let people live through the worst of the weather.
If it is as bad as it is described in the article, I worry about long term prospects of stable economy and progress, what with people occupied mostly with trying to survive another hellish day.
spodek|4 years ago
To change the slope, exactly two things work: reducing our consumption and reducing our birth rate. Mechai Viravaidya in Thailand showed how to reduce birth rate in the opposite of China's One Child policy or eugenics -- that is, voluntary, noncoercive, even fun -- as did Costa Rica, Iran, and several other countries. Most Americans can improve their quality of life by lowering consumption. I reduced mine over 90% with just life improvements. I estimate most Americans can reduce theirs 80% or more without sacrifice, just improvements. The most polluting can probably reduce theirs 99%.
Systemic change begins with personal transformation. Government and corporations will follow individual action, as they historically have. Personal transformation enables us to lead others. Leading others has the biggest effect because it multiplies.
zohch|4 years ago
In what sense would these people be climate refugees rather than infrastructure refugees? What percentage of Canada's population can survive in Canada without canada's infrastructure ?
If you read the article, a major problem the author is complaining about is the infrastructure:
> The electricity problems make it worse. The load-shedding comes during summer months and, these days, often falls in Ramadan, when people can’t drink water.
ant6n|4 years ago
In BC, Canada the Heat record was broken by almost 5C.
zohch|4 years ago
This links to: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/05/one-bill...
Titled: One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years – study
Can't they just link to historical temperature records for Karachi rather?
CodeGlitch|4 years ago
Obviously living in a cave is not great, but properly built underground habitats?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Quarry_Caves
klyrs|4 years ago
signal11|4 years ago
The other option is heat pumps that exchange heat with the ground. These are slowly becoming more popular in the UK, for instance, but aren’t cheap.
tibbydudeza|4 years ago
One of the main reasons why I would never move to another part of the country.
dennis_jeeves|4 years ago
People have very short memories, and often it is the _current_ summer/winter that appears to be the harshest to them, not the one that happened 20 years ago. Memories are even more shorter when it is generational.
kazoomonger|4 years ago
https://climate.nasa.gov/interactives/climate-time-machine/
As a bonus, it also demonstrates that climate != weather. Even as the whole map is turning red, there's still a few cooler spots in any given year. There's just less and less.
impostervt|4 years ago
nickserv|4 years ago
bloopernova|4 years ago
Between this and the pandemic response in so many places, I'm not so sure humanity is going to be around in a century or two.
The rich will live in climate controlled domes on remote islands or ships, while billions of people starve, overheat, or fight over scraps. The global "elite" rich have a serious blind-spot though: They never seem to realize that they rely on a massive robust web of interconnected humanity to support their wealth and privilege. From billions of farmers, miners, craftspeople, teachers, to workers of all types, the global rich live at the top of a massive pyramid of humanity.
Makes me wonder if the person who is desperately trying to bootstrap a society on Mars has the right idea...
Sorry for a depressing comment. It's sobering to know that despite having another 50 years or so of life left to live, I will probably die in a food riot or from home invaders looking for water and food.
mr-wendel|4 years ago
I'm not particularly convinced of this line of argumentation. The amount of hubris and ignorance required would be truly astonishing. My take, based on misc readings from folks who have one foot in said world, is that the global elite rich are absolutely aware of this.
Furthermore, they're actively debating the problem for the simple reason of self-preservation. They want to keep their station in life: their in-groups, all their "toys", etc. They are viscerally aware of the growing disillusioned on all sides of the spectrum and an increasing willingness of the disenchanted to burn it down instead of playing what is perceived (rightly?) to be a rigged game.
Overall, it's hardly benevolent, and questionably competent. Some individuals most certainly are both; some far from either. Regardless, I do believe that sheer greed alone will mean they'll be throwing themselves as these problems if only to keep some semblance of the "good ol' days".
vimacs2|4 years ago
I don't reallly think we're even at a real risk of actual extinction though. We as a species have gone through far more traumatic climate change in the past. Modern civilisation might collapse but humanity before the hubris of the state and capital - hunter gatherers and nomads will just continue business as always. Even many modern anemeties might be able to persist using more decentralised and sustainable fabrication methods. We will have to make up for the breakdown of those supply chains but there are many alternatives to modern electronics that are not being persued because the status quo is currently more economical.
Hopefuly, the next iteration of civilisation will do a better job of stewardship with the planet instead of being a pest.
miltondts|4 years ago
However, I think there is an even bigger blind-spot in the general population: technology. We have a level of technology such that aggression and basic necessities can be quite easily produced with few people (drones, modern agriculture etc). They are not as dependent on us as previous elites. I think they know that when they fly to New Zealand they can keep all the refugees out quite easily, while maintaining a life with as much comfort as today.
Kaibeezy|4 years ago
Aha... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27723001
Santosh83|4 years ago
unknown|4 years ago
[deleted]
3327|4 years ago
In fact, mean temp of Karachi is 32 C in June - which is not Low at all.
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/pakistan/karachi/climate
and 68% percentile high temp is 35 C.
The highest temp on record for Karachi was nearly 48 C - in 1938.
For sure 44 C is not Cool - but also not worth a Guardian article for a place that has a mean temperature of 32 and many days a year above 40 C.
From a personal note - I am writing this as I sit @ 42C and I am not dying. Heck - my laptop probably does though...
cr1895|4 years ago
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/how-hot-is-too-hot-for-human...
According to this site, there are numerous areas of Pakistan with a wet-bulb temp well north of 35C...that seems extremely dire, and should probably not be flippantly dismissed because other places are hotter.
https://meteologix.com/pk/observations/pakistan/wet-bulb-tem...
leto_ii|4 years ago
What would those more pressing issues be? Soon enough many very populated places in the world will be unlivable. Even now the reality described in the piece is shocking - 330 GBP for a month's worth of power is way more than what I pay in the Netherlands during the coldest winter months. I imagine the vast majority of Pakistanis will never be able to afford the amount of electricity needed to cool their houses down to a bearable temperature.
OJFord|4 years ago
long_time_gone|4 years ago
Where you are sitting in 42 C weather, do you still have electricity? Because that’s mostly what the article is mostly about.
unknown|4 years ago
[deleted]