Beyond human endurance How climate change is making parts of the world too hot and humid to survive

[RV_]

This article explains wet bulb measurements and where in the world it is getting difficult to adapt to much hotter temps. Good advice on staying healthy in heat.

Excerpts:

Deadly heat waves have swept the globe and will continue to because of climate change.

The trends are prompting doomsday questions: Will parts of the world soon become too hot to live in? How will we survive?

When it comes to heat, the human body is remarkably resilient — it’s the humidity that makes it harder to cool down. And humidity, driven in part by climate change, is increasing.

A measurement of the combination of heat and humidity is called a “wet-bulb temperature,” which is determined by wrapping a completely wet wick around the bulb of a thermometer. Scientists are using this metric to figure out which regions of the world may become too dangerous for humans.

A term we rarely hear about, the wet-bulb temperature reflects not only heat, but also how much water is in the air. The higher that number is, the harder it is for sweat to evaporate and for bodies to cool down.

[Wet-bulb temperature is important, climate experts say. So what is it?]

At a certain threshold of heat and humidity, “it’s no longer possible to be able to sweat fast enough to prevent overheating,” said Radley Horton a professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Scientists have found that Mexico and Central America, the Persian Gulf, India, Pakistan and Southeast Asia are all careening toward this threshold before the end of the century."

Much more in the comprehensive article here:

Heat waves and human endurance

[Ray,IN]

Every training company at Ft. Benning is trained to use the wet-bulb thermometer and which parameters to monitor. We used them as far back as the 1980's. When the human body loses the ability to sweat it's called heat stroke, an immediate life threatening situation.

I wonder how much hotter the earth will get? This is only the beginning of a 5,000-8,000  year cycle. Yes I believe humanity is causing it to proceed faster.

 

 

[Barbaraok]

Well even the dry heat of Arizona at 120 feels almost to hot to handle, but if you are in the shade and have a little water, you can survive.  Contrast with 98° heat + 90% humidity we had in East Texas and we would pull all the guys off of construction projects or other outside work because they simply couldn't handle it.  Which is why in the summer in East Texas big construction projects would start before daylight - like concrete pours at 3:00 am!

[TXiceman]

One TV station in Houston used to give dry and wet bulb temperatures but stopped.  People complained that it was too confusing and too lazy to learn anything new.  They only want the heat index or wind chill number and then they do not understand them.

I see the climate is definitely changing, never mind what the politicians try to say.  We need to make adjustments in our overall life styles to adapt to the changes where we can.

I grew up in central, west and southeast Texas.  The farmers knew to come in and get in the shade, take a nap on the porch during the heat of the day, start early, and then maybe go back out to finish up late in the day.  Modern day folks do not understand working around the heat, not during the heat.

Ken

[Chalkie]

My son always used to complain that the union he belongs to had rules for working in heat but not in the cold.

 

[Barbaraok]

"Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day sun".  Lyrics in a song by Noel Coward

[Chalkie]

2 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

"Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day sun".  Lyrics in a song by Noel Coward

There's something to that. While we lived in Spain the English were second only to the French in crowding the beaches in summer. My son-in-law's Irish family after our daughter and he got married in Monterey, CA wanted to and actually did visit Death Valley on the way to Vegas...... in AUGUST!

I think there must be something about sun and heat that draws in those folks that live in cooler, rainier climes. 

[Barbaraok]

They have excessive heat warnings out in Seattle area because it is going to be in the mid to high 80s!  My sister sets her AC to come on if it hits 75!   Years of living in hotter climate, anything below 90 just doesn’t raise an  eyebrow from us anymore.   

[Pat & Pete]

15 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

They have excessive heat warnings out in Seattle area because it is going to be in the mid to high 80s!  My sister sets her AC to come on if it hits 75!   Years of living in hotter climate, anything below 90 just doesn’t raise an  eyebrow from us anymore.   

Pretty much the same for us . 

82° is the new 72°  .

[justRich]

"Desert-if-ication" is what I think is happening.
According to one of my long departed university professors (pre-global warming) the earth has been heating up for ages.  The desert areas have been moving north and south from the equator for decades.

Deserts temps are typically marked by higher-high temps and lower-low temps.  The average may remain the same.
Currently, it seems that both the highs and lows are becoming consistently higher.

And droughts are becoming more common world wide.
"Desertification" is too much of a mouth-full for the news media. 
And so it will not become a media star.
The consequences are serious beyond belief.

 

 

 

 

[Ray,IN]

On 8/1/2021 at 10:29 AM, TXiceman said:

One TV station in Houston used to give dry and wet bulb temperatures but stopped.  People complained that it was too confusing and too lazy to learn anything new.  They only want the heat index or wind chill number and then they do not understand them.

I see the climate is definitely changing, never mind what the politicians try to say.  We need to make adjustments in our overall life styles to adapt to the changes where we can.

I grew up in central, west and southeast Texas.  The farmers knew to come in and get in the shade, take a nap on the porch during the heat of the day, start early, and then maybe go back out to finish up late in the day.  Modern day folks do not understand working around the heat, not during the heat.

Ken

Siesta is the term.

[noteven]

On 8/2/2021 at 8:06 AM, Rich&Sylvia said:

"Desert-if-ication" is what I think is happening.
According to one of my long departed university professors (pre-global warming) the earth has been heating up for ages.  The desert areas have been moving north and south from the equator for decades.

Deserts temps are typically marked by higher-high temps and lower-low temps.  The average may remain the same.
Currently, it seems that both the highs and lows are becoming consistently higher.

And droughts are becoming more common world wide.
"Desertification" is too much of a mouth-full for the news media. 
And so it will not become a media star.
The consequences are serious beyond belief.

 

 

 

 

 

I was at a Barley Growers Association convention in Alberta. Prof. Tim Ball was a guest speaker. His talk outlined some factors developing: 

- "the climate" and "the weather" had been fairly repetitive and stable since 1940. Most people alive had lived during that period, therefore that is "normal."

- "the climate" had begun to show signs of returning to it's normal, which is to go through cycles, including short periods of "abnormal" conditions.

- repeated lack of moisture was beginning to affect USA crop production. No other major crop producing areas on earth lie at the latitudes of the lower 48 states of the USA.  What is negative for the USA is normally deemed to be negative for the world, a message that was starting to go out on the new CNN 24 hour news feed. 

Even though food crop production would likely improve in latitudes further north and south. 

His prediction was this situation was going to balloon into an all out political uproar once the fear value was figured out. 

He also talked about past climactic conditions during human existence, how populations adapted, migrated, developed technology. 

What year?

1985. 

[Vladimir]

10,000 year history of climate in the western US...though most of the research and book focus on California.

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520286009/the-west-without-water

Anyway, it will curl your toes as you read it!!! 

It is a little scientific so a difficult read for those without a intense interest in the subject or a science background.  

It appears that we have lived through the "best of times" in the western US.  Now that the climate is headed back to normal....it will get interesting.  

Teaser, to get you to read the book....think the last 20 years in California was a drought??  How about 150 years of a drought??  The Sierra lakes gone and turned into meadows, then forests, and then drowned underwater when the rains returned a couple of centuries later!!

I find it funny that there is so much concern about "man-caused climate change".  That is chump change compared to natural climate change over the past 10,000 years.

 

[sandsys]

I always wonder how people can ignore that there was an ice age when expecting climate to not change.

Linda

[Vladimir]

3 minutes ago, sandsys said:

I always wonder how people can ignore that there was an ice age when expecting climate to not change.

Linda

It was 10,000 years ago.  

So they expect it to take 10,000 years for the climate to change again.  

To every generation of humans on earth....the climate was normal when they were born and growing up.  As they got old, the climate changed and they complained about it.

The blame does change depending on culture, location, and religion.

[Kirk W]

13 hours ago, Vladimir said:

The blame does change depending on culture, location, and religion.

Don't forget the influence of politics. Even our culture plays a part in what we do and how we view things. The culture we come from plays a major role in how we view things, even science. 

To me, it seems obvious that the incredible increase in human population and the major changes that humans have made to the natural environment would have an impact on the weather and all parts of the natural systems. Here in the USA we now have farms, factories, and cities in places that only 200 years ago were grasslands sprinkled with bison and a few native hunters. 

Edited August 4, 2021 by Kirk W

[Ray,IN]

11 hours ago, Kirk W said:

Don't forget the influence of politics. Even our culture plays a part in what we do and how we view things. The culture we come from plays a major role in how we view things, even science. 

To me, it seems obvious that the incredible increase in human population and the major changes that humans have made to the natural environment would have an impact on the weather and all parts of the natural systems. Here in the USA we now have farms, factories, and cities in places that only 200 years ago were grasslands sprinkled with bison and a few native hunters. 

Add in commercial farming the deserts within the last 100 years. The lack of water in the SW U.S.A. is a pressing problem. This year farmers lost 20% of their annual water allotment, next year another 20%, etc. That WILL affect the food chain.

[noteven]

There was a round of “did you know…” going on around the campfire the other night. 
 

A guy says, “Did you know the population of the earth can stand rank and file inside a square 55 miles each side?” 
 

Boy did he get a talking to… 

 

[durangodon]

Sounds about right. 

https://snapzu.com/geoleo/how-much-room-the-entire-world-population-would-take-up-if-standing-side-by-side

 

[noteven]

On 8/3/2021 at 5:51 PM, Vladimir said:

It was 10,000 years ago.  

So they expect it to take 10,000 years for the climate to change again.  

To every generation of humans on earth....the climate was normal when they were born and growing up.  As they got old, the climate changed and they complained about it.

The blame does change depending on culture, location, and religion.

I was in high shool in the mid 1970’s. We were taught global cooling was going to lead to “ice age” conditions possibly as early as 2020. Somewheres in the archives which I cannot find at the moment I have a copy of a Time Magazine article from that period outlining global temperature decline and the threat of annihilation it represented. It reads like a present day article but opposite cause of the same effect… 

 

[Barbaraok]

1 hour ago, noteven said:

I was in high shool in the mid 1970’s. We were taught global cooling was going to lead to “ice age” conditions possibly as early as 2020. Somewheres in the archives which I cannot find at the moment I have a copy of a Time Magazine article from that period outlining global temperature decline and the threat of annihilation it represented. It reads like a present day article but opposite cause of the same effect… 

 

Maybe you should go look at this article about the "Time Cover". https://science.time.com/2013/06/06/sorry-a-time-magazine-cover-did-not-predict-a-coming-ice-age/

One should be careful of where one picks up information.

"But as John Cook points out over at Skeptical Science, global cooling was much more an invention of the media than it was a real scientific concern. A survey of peer-reviewed scientific papers published between 1965 and 1979 shows that the large majority of research at the time predicted that the earth would warm as carbon-dioxide levels rose — as indeed it has. And some of those global-cooling projections were based on the idea that aerosol levels in the atmosphere — which are a product of air pollution from sources like coal burning and which contribute to cooling by deflecting sunlight in the atmosphere — would keep rising. But thanks to environmental legislation like the Clean Air Acts, global air-pollution levels — not including greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide — peaked in the 1970s and began declining."

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by Barbaraok

[Kirk W]

2 hours ago, noteven said:

I was in high shool in the mid 1970’s.

Don't be boasting about how young you are!    😆 

[noteven]

1 hour ago, Barbaraok said:

Maybe you should go look at this article about the "Time Cover". https://science.time.com/2013/06/06/sorry-a-time-magazine-cover-did-not-predict-a-coming-ice-age/

One should be careful of where one picks up information.

"But as John Cook points out over at Skeptical Science, global cooling was much more an invention of the media than it was a real scientific concern. A survey of peer-reviewed scientific papers published between 1965 and 1979 shows that the large majority of research at the time predicted that the earth would warm as carbon-dioxide levels rose — as indeed it has. And some of those global-cooling projections were based on the idea that aerosol levels in the atmosphere — which are a product of air pollution from sources like coal burning and which contribute to cooling by deflecting sunlight in the atmosphere — would keep rising. But thanks to environmental legislation like the Clean Air Acts, global air-pollution levels — not including greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide — peaked in the 1970s and began declining."

 

Nope those referred covers don't look familiar. 

What I had was a photocopy of a printed article in pdf format. It used to be searchable on the web 10-12 years ago but is no longer found with my pathetic skills. I might(?) have stored a copy on a stored hard drive. 

 

Anyways I am putting together a start up company to produce carbon dioxide insulation. With "carbon's" amazing infrared reflective properties and it's plentiful abundance and yearly growing supply, this should be a winner. 

 

[noteven]

44 minutes ago, Kirk W said:

Don't be boasting about how young you are!    😆 

🤣

[RV_]

Fake Time covers are nothing new. This page shows a fake by changing the headline:

https://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/06/04/the-1970s-ice-age-myth-and-time-magazine-covers-by-david-kirtley