Analysis of six extreme heatwaves found that when temperature and humidity were accounted for, all were potentially deadly for older people
The paper is here
You must log in or # to comment.
Look back on this moment fondly: the time before “wet bulb” became widely known…
We don’t really get those where I am but we do get unsurvivable cold snaps, so we’ve got that going for us.
That’s what they said in Canada. Then there was a really insane heat wave in 2021 in Alberta.
Yes in North America the non-coastal west can get brutally hot, I’ve lived a few places there. I looked it up and Albertte has hit 44 C which is decently hot. But they’ve also experienced -61 C. Which one do you think will kill you faster if you don’t have a temperature-controlled place to get away from it?
Remember how they solved this in that one book that starts with the sole survivor of a massive heat dome?
That book was The Ministry for the Future (2020) by Kim Stanley Robinson and the solution involved assassinations at scale of oil and gas industry executives as well as destruction by drone of all fossil fuel tankers and egregiously polluting cargo ships. Also, massive releases of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, aggressive immobilization of Antarctic glaciers via water pumps, and the onboarding of all central banks to rebase currency according to how much CO₂ you can fix into the ground instead of capitalism’s belief in endless future growth. It is a very optimistic story, but one we’ll have to carry out eventually in some form to at least the degree described in the book.
Assassinations for non-compliant billionaires/oligarchs, which irl would be literally every single one! That was it! Thank you! Sorry for asking but it had been a while since i read that.
That was a surprisingly grisly start to an otherwise extremely disappointing book.
It really was. It had one good idea, though.
Kim Stanley Robinson is elderly now, time for him to put down the quill and pick up gardening. I’m constantly surprised that the people who are the most pro-tech and colonize space and “explore that” are never for the #1 most important thing: anti-aging and life extension research.
Hasn’t it been like 20 years since Afghanistan was digging anticipatory mass graves before summer because of the expected number of routine deaths that would be caused by the heat?
We’ve been in the middle of the dystopian climate catastrophe for decades now. It’s amazing some people haven’t noticed.
What we have gotten here have killed double digit folks. usually elderly or homeless. won’t take much higher to move this into triple digits I think. Just going to get worse form there and this is a good place. Remember when where to go to avoid climate change was all the rage and then the pacific northwest went on fire.
You mean digits = deaths? We have absolutely killed that many and the WHO estimates near a half million heat related deaths. Or are you referring to a limited locale?
limited local for individual events. so like one heat wave incident in my city.
Send the bill to those advertising O&G, they have plenty of money.
I love it when OP adds their own clarification in the square brackets to de-clickbait a title
This is what we come to lemmy for!
Anything that doesn’t kill you brings you closer to death in some way if it is hurtful.
Heatwaves push EVERYBODY closer to the edge and for many elderly and people with health issues the edge was already right there.
I don’t care if a city can claim technically zero heat deaths in the immediate aftermath of a heatwave, people die indirectly from the pure body stress of it excaberating other pre-existing issues and the impact doesn’t disappear the next day.
Anything that doesn’t kill you brings you closer to death in some way if it is hurtful.
Uhhh exercise can be hurtful (muscle soreness) and I’m sure we can find other examples
Not that I disagree with the rest of your post. I love a good sauna, but the joy of it is that it ends when I get out (and maybe jump into a pile of snow). A heat wave is just… Taxing
In lieu of trees and shade, I’ve been told (by a woman that was almost 100 years old) that during a really miserable heat wave, (she hated being too hot) get into a basement or anyplace that has a first level that is in - not on - the ground.
Unfortunately, that’s just not possible everywhere. For instance, where I live the water table is like 6 inches below the ground. Pretty much every house here has a crawlspace foundation. The few that do have basements pretty much all have mold issues and need sump pumps, etc.
Sounds like a good source for water cooling! Dig a small well and pump the water around you to cook your room.
Not sure how effective this really is, should get some amount of cooling and have been curious to try it sometime.
That’s the issue with high wet bulb conditions: they are too hot and humid to allow for evaporative cooling to work.
Good news, it isn’t evaporative. It relies on the ground being cooler than the air.
Oh, you mean geothermal cooling. Yes, some buildings use that for heating/cooling by using vertical wells or buried horizontal loops coupled with heat pumps. It’s fairly green, though can be an expensive investment up front if one needs to use vertical wells due to lack of real estate. It’s still air conditioning, just coupled to underground water as a heat sink instead of outside air.
The DIY method I mentioned is just dumping heat into the ground using water to transfer it. No heat pump, just a pump and much cheaper. Of course anything with a heat pump is going to be more powerful.
Not sure how many watts of cooling something like that could realistically manage but I have been interested in the idea.
I’m picturing a Corsi-Rosenthal box with automotive radiators connected in series instead of air filters! The inlet hooked to a sink, and the outlet hooked to the drain. Heat losses would be introduced at the well’s pump, and at the box fan motor. As long as nothing leaks, the only things to worry about would be the added power consumed, the added wear on the well pump, and the well water’s rate of replenishment. Oh, and the condensation which may collect on the radiators. An interesting DIY idea. I wonder if anyone has already tried it.
to cook your room
I could think of better uses lol
That works in winter as well. The ground usually stays in the 50s(F).
This summer I may sleep in my smelly basement since I work nights. I’ll get a cot so I don’t have to be on dirt, but it’s better than a room where the temperatures are over 30°C even on smelly wet dirt.
Careful, when I mention this I get downvotes and called a Doomer.
look just think positive thoughts!
humans have survived all previous challenges, we’ll be fine
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
/s
That’s the spirit!
heatwaves have always wiped out people haven’t they?
This is talking about the weather conditions at which a person is guaranteed to die if they are outside for six hours in the shade (or at night).
Previously climate scientists said this would happen at a wet bulb temperature1 of 35 Celsius, theoretically enough to prevent a sweat-drenched human body from overheating. However, research has demonstrated the threshold is lower and doesn’t perfectly follow a single wet bulb temperature. And the scientific article that the news article is about shows these conditions have already occurred several times, when it was previously thought this threshold had not been breached yet.
Of course people can find shelter in an air conditioned buildings, underground, or under a forest canopy. But billions of people do not have access to these options. At some point they can either die or migrate, and this research shows that point requires less climate change than previously predicted. Combined with climate change occurring at a faster rate than the median expectation, mass climate migration is coming a lot sooner than expected.
1: the temperature a thermometer indicates if the bulb is wet. If the air is dry, evaporation will cause this temperature to be lower than the air temperature, which is also the temperature a thermometer indicates if the bulb is dry.
Droughts and heat vs cold periods and floods.
You get a pummeling of that? TKO.
Yeah, when they happen, and above a certain threshold.
The problem is that the “when” is becoming far more common and the baseline is rising ever closer to that “certain threshold.”
