Kim Stanley Robinson's recent book The Ministry For the Future starts with a very disturbing scenario: A heatwave with a "web bulb" temperature of 35 Celsius.
It turns out, in those temperatures, even young and healthy people can't survive. Combined with power outages, as happens in the book, everyone living under such a heat wave will likely die.
It's looking increasingly likely that such heatwaves are possible in the future, and possibly quite deadly. This could result in the mass deaths of many people, especially in poor tropical countries that don't have a stable infrastructure to cool most people during such a heatwave. I hope a mass death event from a "web bulb" 35C heatwave never happens, but I'm losing hope, especially with the increasing global temperatures, and the very lackluster progress being made on carbon output.
> Combined with power outages, as happens in the book, everyone living under such a heat wave will likely die.
That's an exaggeration. Extreme heat (including heat waves that exceed this threshold) happen semi-regularly, and the death rate when they occur is nowhere near 100%. More like 0.1% or less.
Electrically-powered air conditioning is not the only way to cool a human body.
Simply escaping to an underground or substantially enclosed area is sufficient for periods of up to a few days, or even weeks depending on the thickness of the walls. Car parks, cellars, caves, etc... all retain a relatively constant temperature irrespective of temporary swings of the air temperature outside.
Similarly, immersing oneself in a body of water below about 36 C is also sufficient, and that's typically available even if the local air temperature and humidity exceeds safe levels. E.g.: Rivers "carry" the cold down from mountains, and are safe havens during temperature extremes. Even the local pool is sufficient, because water has such a massive thermal capacity that it won't heat up anywhere near as fast as the air around it.
At times like this you see people filling up their bathtubs and just hanging out in there until things blow over.
More worrying is what happens to wildlife. Some animals simply can't escape like humans and most animals can. For example in Australia a recent heatwave killed something like half of all flying foxes!
> It turns out, in those temperatures, even young and healthy people can't survive.
Of note: that’s literal, even doing nothing and sitting in front of a fan you can’t cool down.
And do one of the issues 35 WBT “hides” is that any activity lowers the heat stress threshold. Sugarcane workers are already dying due to heat stress today, and have been for a while. There’s been an “epidemic” of “kidney disease” in central american sugarcane fields for a decade now, with young men showing rates of kidney diseases 15x the norm.
i probably have a comment somewhere recently, but singapore is already in WBT >35 conditions in the day. it eases to around 30 at night or when rain falls.
as long as power is running, it's actually fine in this country, but that's because we've designed our living space around the heat. it is entirely possible to never be exposed to the sun in a normal day in the life of a working resident here if you stay in the right neighbourhood, and this includes the daily commute, hobbies, physical activity, going out for drinks etc.
more and more of the country is being built underground and more and more of our air is becoming conditioned. this is the arcology of the future and it is somewhat pleasant.
edit: actually i think our infrastructure was built around protecting us from the harsh and unpredictable tropical thunderstorms and the protection from heat turned out to be a nice bonus.
I find it amusing that people are trying to downplay this because it is feasibly survivable in their opinions. If you're wondering "how I can survive these circumstances in my own home?" things are already really, really bad.
For people reading "web bulb" here and not having the least idea of what it is, first of all it's "wet bulb", and this article explained it very clearly to me:
Genuine question: does old-style insulation not help? From when I was a kid I remember that a log house built using 60ies village technology (realistically probably more like 19th century technology), insulated with something stuffed in the triangles between logs and wallpaper and logs and planks (and partially eaten by mice ;)), stayed pleasantly cool on 90-degree days. And the dugout under it that we used to store potatoes and stuff like that was actually cold.
In a recent Seattle heatwave, when it was 107 outside my much poorer insulated semi-basement with direct sun shining into its large-ish windows, stayed under 85 without AC.
Couldn't people just build better / underground housing using relatively primitive technology?
A lot of new technology could potentially solve this problem.
There are certain types of roofs being installed called cool roofs that reflect heat and don’t absorb it that keeps the inside of building a little cooler.
Imagine a future where looters drive through wastelands where heat waves killed off the entire human population, dead bodies rotting in the street, and the looters rummaging through whatever valuables they find, exchanging occasional gunfire with a survivor or rival clans.
> everyone living under such a heat wave will likely die.
I mean ground and buildings have thermal inertia, if the heatwave is relatively short you can survive in basements or underground parking. Also water in the pipes will still be colder than the air most likely.
If there’s a heat wave and drought the only way is to dig tunnels and build cities underground. Water can be imported from the ocean (rising sea levels) and desalinated using solar/thermal power above ground and feed an aquifer!
"The study — published in the British journal The Lancet — analyzed data on more than 74 million deaths in 13 countries between 1985 and 2012. Of those, 5.4 million deaths were related to cold, while 311,000 were related to heat."
I wonder how practical it would be to sink 30 foot deep concrete tube shelters with a ladder and a lid. They could serve as emergency daytime shelters and someone could climb out at night to search for a location with working power or cooler weather.
There are two cities in India that are pretty close by where this difference is very clear. Chennai is on the coast, while Bangalore is inland at a higher altitude while they’re both pretty much the same latitude.
The difference in perception even if the dry bulb temperature is the same is insane. In Bangalore I can always find shade and it’ll be cool instantly, but in Chennai my whole body is always soaking wet, my clothes are drenched with my own sweat and I still feel like always about to faint.
I used to take long walks during the day when I lived in Bangalore (it has other man made problems like traffic which are still irritating) but here I Chennai I can’t walk or jog outside even if I wanted to. I step outside only to run to the car and turn the AC on.
It's striking to me that according to the map in figure 4, the parts of the Indian subcontinent most at risk are in the Indus and Ganges valleys. Areas hundreds of miles further south (including Chennai and Bangalore) are safe!
Why is this? I see that the south is much more mountainous [1], whereas the Indus and Ganges valleys are very flat (hence that term "Indo-Gangetic Plain"). Is it just the combination of being low-altitude, being inland, and having lots of water? Or are there also differences in prevailing wind, or something else?
Similar question to this that I've been wondering this wildfire season -- at what point is AQI (Air Quality Index) too severe for human tolerance? The scale tops out at 500, what happens to a person if the air is even worse than that?
Some sensors near Medford, OR are reading in the upper 400's and even low 500's -- what happens if it hits what would be the 1000's if the scale went that high?
I'm mostly thinking of particulates, but AQI includes other gases like CO, SO2, NO2 so maybe those would be more dangerous than particulates (and certainly harder to filter out)
Practically speaking, you start wearing a mask. You start filtering the air inside, and you stop going outside. This way-of-life is already familiar to people in certain major cities, and to those with health issues that make them more vulnerable to air quality problems. It's a worse life, but it's still life.
Medford resident here. We experienced a few days of 900+ last summer.
It's very bad. Even in the 400's, it feels like chain smoking. At 900 the air is thick enough to block out most of sun. I have no idea what this has done to my health, but I guarantee it's not good.
I’m speaking out of my depth here but I believe exposure related disease is based on the particle density over time. Particles can clog the respiratory system, reducing blood oxygen and introducing free radicals. To a large extent the body is able to remove the debris, but if there is too much buildup due to prolonged exposure to high AQI then it can be difficult to recover without intervention.
I was at a chain drug store the other day and saw a display for canned oxygen, regular and Peppermint flavor!?! It seemed like another sign of the apocalypse to me, but maybe just a gimmick or stopgap for terrible air quality events.
There are a bunch of cities in China and India where AQI peaks at well over 1000. As you'd expect, the long-term health effects are similar to chain smoking, but it doesn't cause healthy people to drop dead on the spot or anything. Asthmatics, on the hand, are in for a bad time.
One of the previous years AQI 246 (in SF) was compared to smoking 11 cigarettes a day by some researchers. Assuming you do literally nothing to avoid it, 500 must be like smoking a ~pack a day. That is a typical, easy to track volume for many smokers; I used to smoke a pack a day for a couple years (gave up completely ~15 years ago)... it's not great statistically (and certainly make cardio harder from my experience), but it feels just like normal life and is low enough impact that many people never give up 0_o
Well it already happens when big wildfires happen and people have dangerous air around for days. In the short term, keeping everything closed and using masks is probably enough.
If you mean as a permanent thing, you'd need houses to start having filters on air intake and no openable windows, with instead all air being circulated by the place that has a filter
Due to local geography trapping wildfire smoke, last week SLC, UT, USA hit over 200 and even walking to the mailbox without a mask on was uncomfortable. My friends were wearing N95s and respirators when walking to their cars and using the recirculation setting. My HVAC filter was dark with smoke particles.
Anything over 100 and I'm feeling uncomfortable. Practically speaking what happens is you stay inside and get good air filters if you have to go outside.
I wonder if people confuse wet bulb and dry bulb here. Wet bulb is related to how well your air conditioner or sweating will cool you. Dry bulb is what we usually say when taking a temperature reading, or listening to the local news' meteorologist.
We should call them exterminating heat events, make it clearer.
Love the people calling for air conditioning. They should make peace corp or something compulsory, the degree of out-of-toucedness on some people about the degree of infra and poverty that exists here is extraordinary.
> Our survey of the climate record from station data reveals many global TW exceedances of 31° and 33°C and two stations that have already reported multiple daily maximum TW values above 35°C.
I only did a quick skim of the paper, but I couldn't actually find which two stations they were talking about. I'm curious as to which two places they were.
I see a lot of uninformed people on this thread thinking 35C wet bulb temperature isn't such a big deal and proposing various ineffective tips to cool down.
Let me explain what the issue is, in simple words:
WET BULB TEMPERATURE IS NOT TEMPERATURE YOU SEE ON A THERMOMETER. (please, don't nitpick, I am aware of wet bulb thermometers)
Wet bulb temperature is combination of temperature and humidity.
The simple layman way to understand it is it says what minimum temperature an object can attain by evaporating water off it, in perfect conditions (forced airflow, full shade, no internal heating, etc.)
When air is dry, even if it is hot you can evaporate sweat and cool down -- the wet bulb temperature is low in dry air.
You can survive on Sahara because while the air can be very hot, it is also dry. You sweat and you cool down.
As the humidity rises, the wet bulb temperature approaches dry bulb temperature and at 100% humidity they are both the same.
When air is 100% humid you cannot cool down by sweating at all -- the sweat will not evaporate in 100% humidity regardless of temperature.
Meaning that an air with 35C and 100% humidity has 35C wet bulb temperature but so can hotter air that has less than 100% humidity. The hotter air the lower humidity is needed for the object to cool down to 35C.
Wet bulb of 35C is a limit of human endurance. Even if you lie down in shade and do nothing and are completely healthy, your body is barely able to remove enough heat to survive. Any higher temperature and you WILL eventually die.
People who need to work (like move around at all) or are sick or are small (kids) will die faster.
The only way to resolve this issue is to dry the air somehow.
Things that don't work:
-- going into shade. You are still going to die, just a little bit slower.
-- having a fan. It can't cool you down, because water will not evaporate to cool anything below wet bulb temperature. You are going to die.
-- going into cellar. The air will get cooler but the humidity will rise. You are going to die, unless you can cool the air DRY BULB temperature below 35C. At which point your cellar will have water condensing on its walls which means you can remove humidity from air. It will be shitty, wet, 100% humid, hot place, to sit half a day in with your family, kids and neighbors that don't have an expansive cellar like you, but at least you will survive. Yay...
The issue is in areas that tend to be very hot and susceptible to this phenomenon, people tend to not have means to dry the air. They either don't have money for equipment or they have open homes (who keeps their home shut in a climate like that) assuming they have home at all.
From economic point of view, the problem is that even under wet bulb temperature of 35C some people will already be dying and others will have to stop whatever they are doing, which is not good for your economy.
The most dangerous / frequent occurrences seem to be measured in the middle east near shallow gulf coasts. Appleton Wisconsin holds the continental US record, apparently?
> The highest dew points, and therefore the highest heat indices are usually found near warm bodies of water.
> In the world, the warmest water is found in the Persian Gulf where the water temperature typically reaches up to 90°F (32°C) in summer. Therefore dew points will be that high as well.
> The highest dew point ever recorded, 95°F (35°C), was recorded at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on July 8, 2003. With an air temperature of 108°F (42°C) the heat index was 178°F (81°C).
> In the United States, the highest dew point ever recorded, 90°F (32°C), was recorded at the New Orleans Naval Air Station, on July 30, 1987, Melbourne, Florida on July 12, 1987. Heat indices were in the 130's°F (50's°C).
> Appleton, Wisconsin also had a 90°F (32°C) dew point on July 13, 1995 with a heat index of 149°F (65°C)."
Obviously no one wants this to happen, but I wonder about any possible mitigation strategies. Like creating homes and infrastructure under the ground, or at least covered by lots of insulation, like a Moon base covered with lots of dirt.
Of course, that would completely suck for the people who have to live there, and we should do our best to prevent it, but some people probably aren't going to have a choice but to try and handle it in whatever way they can.
I’ve been saying for years now that we’ll most probably see a time in our lifetime where you need to wear a (light) space-suit style thing to go outside in some seasons. Insulated and actively heated/cooled, possible with air filtration for pollution/smoke/etc. There’s already been some companies playing with the idea as a prototype/art/statement level but I truly think it’s inevitable that it becomes more common.
They make refrigeration systems for people who work outside. It’s a giant compressor that cools a liquid and moves that liquid through a tube and across a persons body via a vest. I remember one guy who owns a roofing business was saying that it’s totally worth the money to cool your crew down because your guys actually work faster and also you won’t have any heat injuries.
There are 4 broad scenarios according to which (or a combination thereof) the climate emergency will develop:
1) In a giant case of prisoners' dilemma, the humanity will coordinate worldwide and rise to the occasion, massively cut emissions, tax carbon, build out renewables, etc.
2) There will be massive technological breakthru-s in carbon capture and/or energy production and/or geo-engineering (and I am not talking about things like nuclear, where the tech is mostly there but the rising-to-the-occasion bit is missing).
3) Somehow, the models and projections would turn out to be overblown, or the more mellow of the serious models that project we lose N% GDP or whatever would turn out to be correct.
4) We're doomed, doomed!
Given the humanity's realistic record with (1) and (3)... either fusion works, or [0]
Its funny how many people inflate their importance and think their occupation makes the world go round. In reality it takes a lot of people to keep everything in working order. Specially low wage labor is of disproportional importance. Work done by people who are often (or by definition) financially fragile. A good number of these (and slightly above) involve manual work in already harsh (if not hot) environment. When things get unbearable these people will look at their cards, fold and run away leaving hard to predict holes in the economy.
Can we start considering high tech solutions to actively cool the planet? We're going to slowly work on carbon, but it won't be fast enough. In the meantime, We need to prevent heat getting to Earth, either via more cloud cover or space mirrors in the LaGrange point.
I'm not a fan of either, but what's the alternative? Bake to death while the powerful decision makers delay changing anything?
Here again, one of those cases where as a non-native English speaker, despite 12+ years living in English-speaking countries and working for English-speaking companies, I encounter a term for the first time in my 44-years old life: "wet-bulb".
The wet-bulb temperature is defined as the temperature of a parcel of air cooled to saturation (100% relative humidity) by the evaporation of water into it, with the latent heat supplied by the parcel.
But don't worry, ironically the people who so generously provided the raw materials needed to raise global temperatures and sea levels are equally working on solutions to keep their asses out of the heat and their feet from getting wet.
From the abstract of the last paper, which isn't fully available online, sadly:
"...this paper ventures regional planning responses to adapt to these threats through decentralising populations to inland areas."
Dispersion to the inland areas?
Sure, but the inland areas of which countries?
...
But if they are lucky, they will maybe provide the material for cool and vast underground arcologies that could even reduce carbon dioxide emission from the building industry:
95F TB (Temperature Wet Bulb) is when the humidity is 100% and it is 95F out. The lower the humidity, the lower the TB value. At 40% humidity and 120F temperature, you get 96F TB. Imagine 120F at 40% humidity. Insane, right?
That’s what kind of temperatures this paper is talking about: dangerously hot and humid.
[+] [-] boplicity|4 years ago|reply
It turns out, in those temperatures, even young and healthy people can't survive. Combined with power outages, as happens in the book, everyone living under such a heat wave will likely die.
It's looking increasingly likely that such heatwaves are possible in the future, and possibly quite deadly. This could result in the mass deaths of many people, especially in poor tropical countries that don't have a stable infrastructure to cool most people during such a heatwave. I hope a mass death event from a "web bulb" 35C heatwave never happens, but I'm losing hope, especially with the increasing global temperatures, and the very lackluster progress being made on carbon output.
[+] [-] jiggawatts|4 years ago|reply
That's an exaggeration. Extreme heat (including heat waves that exceed this threshold) happen semi-regularly, and the death rate when they occur is nowhere near 100%. More like 0.1% or less.
Electrically-powered air conditioning is not the only way to cool a human body.
Simply escaping to an underground or substantially enclosed area is sufficient for periods of up to a few days, or even weeks depending on the thickness of the walls. Car parks, cellars, caves, etc... all retain a relatively constant temperature irrespective of temporary swings of the air temperature outside.
Similarly, immersing oneself in a body of water below about 36 C is also sufficient, and that's typically available even if the local air temperature and humidity exceeds safe levels. E.g.: Rivers "carry" the cold down from mountains, and are safe havens during temperature extremes. Even the local pool is sufficient, because water has such a massive thermal capacity that it won't heat up anywhere near as fast as the air around it.
At times like this you see people filling up their bathtubs and just hanging out in there until things blow over.
More worrying is what happens to wildlife. Some animals simply can't escape like humans and most animals can. For example in Australia a recent heatwave killed something like half of all flying foxes!
[+] [-] masklinn|4 years ago|reply
Of note: that’s literal, even doing nothing and sitting in front of a fan you can’t cool down.
And do one of the issues 35 WBT “hides” is that any activity lowers the heat stress threshold. Sugarcane workers are already dying due to heat stress today, and have been for a while. There’s been an “epidemic” of “kidney disease” in central american sugarcane fields for a decade now, with young men showing rates of kidney diseases 15x the norm.
[+] [-] princeb|4 years ago|reply
as long as power is running, it's actually fine in this country, but that's because we've designed our living space around the heat. it is entirely possible to never be exposed to the sun in a normal day in the life of a working resident here if you stay in the right neighbourhood, and this includes the daily commute, hobbies, physical activity, going out for drinks etc.
more and more of the country is being built underground and more and more of our air is becoming conditioned. this is the arcology of the future and it is somewhat pleasant.
edit: actually i think our infrastructure was built around protecting us from the harsh and unpredictable tropical thunderstorms and the protection from heat turned out to be a nice bonus.
[+] [-] rudedogg|4 years ago|reply
I only know from owning a swamp cooler.
[+] [-] spywaregorilla|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j1elo|4 years ago|reply
https://www.iflscience.com/environment/why-is-everybody-talk...
[+] [-] sershe|4 years ago|reply
In a recent Seattle heatwave, when it was 107 outside my much poorer insulated semi-basement with direct sun shining into its large-ish windows, stayed under 85 without AC.
Couldn't people just build better / underground housing using relatively primitive technology?
[+] [-] lugged|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rvn1045|4 years ago|reply
There are certain types of roofs being installed called cool roofs that reflect heat and don’t absorb it that keeps the inside of building a little cooler.
[+] [-] xwdv|4 years ago|reply
That’s the climate changed world.
[+] [-] agumonkey|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrei_says_|4 years ago|reply
The prediction of how people react to the changes - from individuals to institutions to governments is spot on.
Highly recommended.
[+] [-] alexose|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajuc|4 years ago|reply
I mean ground and buildings have thermal inertia, if the heatwave is relatively short you can survive in basements or underground parking. Also water in the pipes will still be colder than the air most likely.
[+] [-] zabatuvajdka|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisco255|4 years ago|reply
Study: Cold kills 20 times more people than heat https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weath...
[+] [-] deniscepko2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Causality1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudhirj|4 years ago|reply
The difference in perception even if the dry bulb temperature is the same is insane. In Bangalore I can always find shade and it’ll be cool instantly, but in Chennai my whole body is always soaking wet, my clothes are drenched with my own sweat and I still feel like always about to faint.
I used to take long walks during the day when I lived in Bangalore (it has other man made problems like traffic which are still irritating) but here I Chennai I can’t walk or jog outside even if I wanted to. I step outside only to run to the car and turn the AC on.
[+] [-] twic|4 years ago|reply
Why is this? I see that the south is much more mountainous [1], whereas the Indus and Ganges valleys are very flat (hence that term "Indo-Gangetic Plain"). Is it just the combination of being low-altitude, being inland, and having lots of water? Or are there also differences in prevailing wind, or something else?
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/jcdtvi/relief_map_...
[+] [-] Johnny555|4 years ago|reply
Some sensors near Medford, OR are reading in the upper 400's and even low 500's -- what happens if it hits what would be the 1000's if the scale went that high?
I'm mostly thinking of particulates, but AQI includes other gases like CO, SO2, NO2 so maybe those would be more dangerous than particulates (and certainly harder to filter out)
[+] [-] javajosh|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexose|4 years ago|reply
It's very bad. Even in the 400's, it feels like chain smoking. At 900 the air is thick enough to block out most of sun. I have no idea what this has done to my health, but I guarantee it's not good.
[+] [-] reilly3000|4 years ago|reply
I was at a chain drug store the other day and saw a display for canned oxygen, regular and Peppermint flavor!?! It seemed like another sign of the apocalypse to me, but maybe just a gimmick or stopgap for terrible air quality events.
[+] [-] Clewza313|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joe_the_user|4 years ago|reply
Ideally, you'd want a VOC filter along with a HEPA filter.
It's a hostile environment - so is a blizzard. That's not saying it's not a problem but humans are able to survive a lot.
[+] [-] sershe|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nialna|4 years ago|reply
If you mean as a permanent thing, you'd need houses to start having filters on air intake and no openable windows, with instead all air being circulated by the place that has a filter
[+] [-] dharmab|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yosito|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomrod|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beervirus|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] specialist|4 years ago|reply
Edit: chewing on "wet heat factor". What do you think? Cliches like "but it's a 'dry heat' harhar" are already common. So "wet heat" might click.
[+] [-] throwaway5752|4 years ago|reply
Love the people calling for air conditioning. They should make peace corp or something compulsory, the degree of out-of-toucedness on some people about the degree of infra and poverty that exists here is extraordinary.
[+] [-] hugh-avherald|4 years ago|reply
I only did a quick skim of the paper, but I couldn't actually find which two stations they were talking about. I'm curious as to which two places they were.
[+] [-] lmilcin|4 years ago|reply
Let me explain what the issue is, in simple words:
WET BULB TEMPERATURE IS NOT TEMPERATURE YOU SEE ON A THERMOMETER. (please, don't nitpick, I am aware of wet bulb thermometers)
Wet bulb temperature is combination of temperature and humidity.
The simple layman way to understand it is it says what minimum temperature an object can attain by evaporating water off it, in perfect conditions (forced airflow, full shade, no internal heating, etc.)
When air is dry, even if it is hot you can evaporate sweat and cool down -- the wet bulb temperature is low in dry air.
You can survive on Sahara because while the air can be very hot, it is also dry. You sweat and you cool down.
As the humidity rises, the wet bulb temperature approaches dry bulb temperature and at 100% humidity they are both the same.
When air is 100% humid you cannot cool down by sweating at all -- the sweat will not evaporate in 100% humidity regardless of temperature.
Meaning that an air with 35C and 100% humidity has 35C wet bulb temperature but so can hotter air that has less than 100% humidity. The hotter air the lower humidity is needed for the object to cool down to 35C.
Wet bulb of 35C is a limit of human endurance. Even if you lie down in shade and do nothing and are completely healthy, your body is barely able to remove enough heat to survive. Any higher temperature and you WILL eventually die.
People who need to work (like move around at all) or are sick or are small (kids) will die faster.
The only way to resolve this issue is to dry the air somehow.
Things that don't work:
-- going into shade. You are still going to die, just a little bit slower.
-- having a fan. It can't cool you down, because water will not evaporate to cool anything below wet bulb temperature. You are going to die.
-- going into cellar. The air will get cooler but the humidity will rise. You are going to die, unless you can cool the air DRY BULB temperature below 35C. At which point your cellar will have water condensing on its walls which means you can remove humidity from air. It will be shitty, wet, 100% humid, hot place, to sit half a day in with your family, kids and neighbors that don't have an expansive cellar like you, but at least you will survive. Yay...
The issue is in areas that tend to be very hot and susceptible to this phenomenon, people tend to not have means to dry the air. They either don't have money for equipment or they have open homes (who keeps their home shut in a climate like that) assuming they have home at all.
From economic point of view, the problem is that even under wet bulb temperature of 35C some people will already be dying and others will have to stop whatever they are doing, which is not good for your economy.
[+] [-] jvanderbot|4 years ago|reply
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/record-de...
The most dangerous / frequent occurrences seem to be measured in the middle east near shallow gulf coasts. Appleton Wisconsin holds the continental US record, apparently?
This is from 2011.
Here: https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/hi
says:
> The highest dew points, and therefore the highest heat indices are usually found near warm bodies of water.
> In the world, the warmest water is found in the Persian Gulf where the water temperature typically reaches up to 90°F (32°C) in summer. Therefore dew points will be that high as well.
> The highest dew point ever recorded, 95°F (35°C), was recorded at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on July 8, 2003. With an air temperature of 108°F (42°C) the heat index was 178°F (81°C).
> In the United States, the highest dew point ever recorded, 90°F (32°C), was recorded at the New Orleans Naval Air Station, on July 30, 1987, Melbourne, Florida on July 12, 1987. Heat indices were in the 130's°F (50's°C).
> Appleton, Wisconsin also had a 90°F (32°C) dew point on July 13, 1995 with a heat index of 149°F (65°C)."
So, it happened once.
[+] [-] dash2|4 years ago|reply
Roger Pielke is good about this. He points out that the "business-as-usual" scenario is extremely unlikely:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-unstoppable-momentu...
I'm not arguing that the original article is uninformative or unimportant.
[+] [-] rdevsrex|4 years ago|reply
Of course, that would completely suck for the people who have to live there, and we should do our best to prevent it, but some people probably aren't going to have a choice but to try and handle it in whatever way they can.
[+] [-] sen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] supperburg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sershe|4 years ago|reply
1) In a giant case of prisoners' dilemma, the humanity will coordinate worldwide and rise to the occasion, massively cut emissions, tax carbon, build out renewables, etc.
2) There will be massive technological breakthru-s in carbon capture and/or energy production and/or geo-engineering (and I am not talking about things like nuclear, where the tech is mostly there but the rising-to-the-occasion bit is missing).
3) Somehow, the models and projections would turn out to be overblown, or the more mellow of the serious models that project we lose N% GDP or whatever would turn out to be correct.
4) We're doomed, doomed!
Given the humanity's realistic record with (1) and (3)... either fusion works, or [0]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRHOcWj--cs
[+] [-] 6510|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NoblePublius|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dumblydorr|4 years ago|reply
I'm not a fan of either, but what's the alternative? Bake to death while the powerful decision makers delay changing anything?
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|4 years ago|reply
The wet-bulb temperature is defined as the temperature of a parcel of air cooled to saturation (100% relative humidity) by the evaporation of water into it, with the latent heat supplied by the parcel.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature
[+] [-] Borrible|4 years ago|reply
https://www.sciencealert.com/middle-east-may-be-uninhabitabl...
Fun fact:
With rising sea levels a lot of people there will be a lot nearer to a big enough body of water to cool their heat.
Or not, since the humidity at coastal areas is higher:
https://meteologix.com/ae/observations/wet-bulb-temperature....
But don't worry, ironically the people who so generously provided the raw materials needed to raise global temperatures and sea levels are equally working on solutions to keep their asses out of the heat and their feet from getting wet.
https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/environment/climate-chan...
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02697459.2020.18...
From the abstract of the last paper, which isn't fully available online, sadly: "...this paper ventures regional planning responses to adapt to these threats through decentralising populations to inland areas."
Dispersion to the inland areas?
Sure, but the inland areas of which countries?
...
But if they are lucky, they will maybe provide the material for cool and vast underground arcologies that could even reduce carbon dioxide emission from the building industry:
https://www.bft-international.com/en/artikel/bft_Environment...
[+] [-] wildermuthn|4 years ago|reply
I too didn’t understand what Wet Bulb temperatures meant until I used this calculator: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/wet-bulb
95F TB (Temperature Wet Bulb) is when the humidity is 100% and it is 95F out. The lower the humidity, the lower the TB value. At 40% humidity and 120F temperature, you get 96F TB. Imagine 120F at 40% humidity. Insane, right?
That’s what kind of temperatures this paper is talking about: dangerously hot and humid.
[+] [-] mrfusion|4 years ago|reply
That being said I would be ok with posts talking about fixing climate change especially if it preserves human rights and dignity.