[HN Gopher] 'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Ph...
___________________________________________________________________
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
Author : mikhael
Score : 89 points
Date : 2024-04-24 18:40 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.japantimes.co.jp)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.japantimes.co.jp)
| typon wrote:
| Things are going to get much, much worse than this.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Affected countries are going to start doing global albedo
| modification, even if other countries object.
| llukas wrote:
| This is not a negative thing.
|
| Global albedo modification happens today its just not very
| directed (eg. pitch black tarmac next to concrete sidewalk
| there is significant difference in temperature on sunny days,
| AC bills would be probably bit cheaper we didn't have
| tarmac).
| pfdietz wrote:
| I think it would mean no more blue skies. The Sun would
| also have a sickly halo, if the Mt. Pinatubo eruption was
| any indication.
| randomsolutions wrote:
| Can't wait for the "Great Thermostat War"
| netsharc wrote:
| Chapter 1 of Ministry for the Future tells the fictional story
| of a massive heatwave with power failure (nice AC you got
| there...) across a region of India.
|
| Said chapter is available from the publishers here:
| https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-ministry-for-t...
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| In Termination Shock, the US didn't really start paying
| attention until people in Texas needed to wear "Earth Suits"
| to go outside.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Whew! What a read, I'ma check the whole book.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| And as a fictional story, it's just the author's completely
| arbitrary rendering of something that hasn't yet happened
| anywhere in the world. It's tiresome to see people citing
| that piece of text as if it were in any way a scientific
| source or prediction of anything.
|
| A bit like citing Paul Ehlrich's hypothetical predictions of
| massive famines in the world of his future.. Oh but wait,
| they all turned out to be completely false.
| vitro wrote:
| Imagine if all that wealth spent on battling climate effects
| have been spent in the past to prevent them instead. What a
| world we could have. Dreamer I am, I know. Hope it is not too
| late and we still have some chances.
| sufficer wrote:
| Or if the world wars never happened
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Wish all articles like this would start including wet bulb
| temperature, so reader wouldn't have to keep finding temp and
| humidity and find it on a chart.
|
| A wet-bulb temperature of 95degF (35degC) is the theoretical
| limit for human survivability for up to six hours of exposure.
| This is equivalent to a heat index of 160degF (71degC). However,
| more recent research indicates that a wet-bulb temperature of
| 88degF can be hazardous even for young Aug 17, 2023
|
| Understanding Wet-Bulb Temperature: The Risks of High Wet ...
|
| https://climatecheck.com/blog/understanding-wet-bulb-tempera....
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature
|
| Edited to add Celsius
|
| Edited to remove reference to shade.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| 95 degrees Fahrenheit = 35 degrees Celsius
|
| (relevant in this case because all degrees in the article are
| in Celsius, and the Wikipedia article's primary scale is
| Celsius)
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| > A wet-bulb temperature of 95degF (35degC) is the theoretical
| limit for human survivability for up to six hours of unshaded
| outdoor exposure
|
| Both the sources you linked say that 35 degrees is the limit in
| the shade as well.
|
| > It has been thought that a sustained wet-bulb temperature
| exceeding 35 degC (95 degF)--given the body's requirement to
| maintain a core temperature of about 37degC--is likely to be
| fatal even to fit and healthy people, unclothed in the shade
| next to a fan
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Sorry. I thought that was from the link .
|
| Guess technically, since shade is cooler, then if the
| temperature was X and shade is (X-shade), then if wet bulb
| was at 95, then you could go into some shade to get cooler.
| Or, since wet bulb is at 95 is same in sun and shade, then if
| it is at 95 deg in shade you are in danger, and if you walked
| into the sun, you'd be in even more danger.
|
| or to try and say another way. Temperature is Temperature,
| and if in Sun you are probably hotter. But wet bulb 'limit'
| would be same, and you'd hit the limit faster in the sun.
| tromp wrote:
| https://archive.is/ODsud
| pil0u wrote:
| > Study results indicate that limiting global warming to 1.5 degC
| would prevent most of the tropics from reaching the wet-bulb
| temperature of the human physiological limit of 35 degC.
|
| Limit was hit in 2023: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-
| environment/2024/02/0...
| next_xibalba wrote:
| If that is true, why haven't we seen mass death from repeated
| 35 breaches?
| _ph_ wrote:
| The 1.5 degrees are the average heatup over the globe, it
| varies across the regions - in Europe we have a higher raise,
| but we are not near the unliveable conditions, though we have
| plenty of heat deaths already. And of course, there is air
| condition. So even if temperatures reach dangerous levels,
| few people will experience it in full force.
| bojan wrote:
| We have, all over the world.
|
| For example, at least 24500 people died from heat-related
| causes in Europe during heat waves of summer 2022.
|
| And that's just one of many examples.
| briandear wrote:
| In 1911 41,000 people died of a heave wave in France.
|
| Highest ambient temperature ever recorded was in Death
| Valley in 1913.
|
| In 1540 Europe had an extreme drought and heatwave that
| lasted 11 months.
|
| I can go on and on. The 2022 heatwave wasn't any more
| unusual than any other heat wave throughout history.
| nostrademons wrote:
| We cared less about mass death in 1911, as exemplified by
| WW1.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _2022 heatwave wasn't any more unusual than any other
| heat wave throughout history_
|
| You can't think of one pertinent home gadget that was
| invented between 1911 and now?
| nickff wrote:
| I assume that you're alluding to the air conditioner,
| which was invented in 1901? The first home installation
| was in 1914, but that wasn't the date of the invention.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_conditioning
| mistrial9 wrote:
| dear fact-impaired readers - global temperature records
| are carefully kept by a multitude of authoritative
| sources, and increasingly so..
|
| the Year 2023 was the Hottest Year on Record to date
| globally.. each month of 2023 ( _edit_ maybe not jan-
| feb?) was also the hottest recorded globally. The hottest
| day cumulatively across the world was in 2023. The nine
| hottest years on record globally were the last nine
| years.
|
| Please use librarianship and science skills for factual
| information. multiple references available for the
| search-impaired
| jcranmer wrote:
| > each month of 2023 was also the hottest recorded
| globally.
|
| Actually, I think January and February failed to breach
| the record--the El Nino didn't set up until April.
|
| (But several of the later months absolutely shattered
| records, as did the year as a whole. 2023 as a whole
| breached the 2C limit).
| netsharc wrote:
| Oh let's play this game with COVID: "Nothing original, we
| had the Spanish Flu in 1918..."
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| Please don't confuse the heat in Death Valley with humid
| heat. Don't get me wrong, that Death Valley heat will
| kill you, but as long as you have water and shade you
| will survive.
|
| I posted about it before:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37455817#37459864
|
| > You have to factor in humidity. > Scottsdale airport
| currently (1:40PM) is 108F (42.222C) w/ 14% humidity,
| meaning a wet-bulb of 71.11F (21.72778C).
|
| > London tomorrow at noon is 86F (30C) w/ 52% humidity,
| meaning a wet-bulb of 72.76F (22.6444C).
|
| > London will actually feel nastier.
| tim333 wrote:
| Also London has terrible aircon.
| margalabargala wrote:
| > limiting global warming to 1.5 degC would prevent most of
| the tropics from reaching the wet-bulb temperature of the
| human physiological limit of 35 degC.
|
| We've had one year _at_ the level of warming that is _not_
| yet expected to yield mass death from wet bulb events.
|
| Give it time. There's no reason to think that the current
| warming trend will slow, stop, or reverse itself in the near
| term.
| briandear wrote:
| Why is there "no reason?" This has happened repeatedly
| throughout history. Climate has always changed. The only
| difference now is that "preventing" climate change is a
| huge industry.
| Rygian wrote:
| The reasons for this increase in temperature persist and
| new contributing reasons are starting to appear, that
| create vicious feedback loops.
| margalabargala wrote:
| "Maybe it'll just -waves hands- magically happen" is "no
| reason". Saying "climate has changed in the past and
| therefore there is reason to believe that it will change
| in this particular way, in the future" does not logically
| follow.
|
| Climate has changed repeatedly throughout history. Every
| time a temperature increase has changed to a temperature
| decrease, this must be preceded by the _rate_ of
| temperature increase decreasing.
|
| We observe the _rate_ of temperature increase, continuing
| to increase.
|
| Thus there is reason to believe that it will get hotter
| for some time, before it again gets colder.
| rvense wrote:
| > The only difference now is that "preventing" climate
| change is a huge industry.
|
| Eh, causing it is in fact a much, much bigger industry.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Seriously the people who say "there is money to be made
| by lying about climate change" and then pointing to the
| few millions of dollars available in public research into
| climate and NOT the _trillions of dollars from multiple
| countries in selling energy in the form of carbon bonds_
| are just goofy.
|
| These are the kind of people that had to cheat off you to
| pass biology yet insist that "the immune system works
| like this"
| sydbarrett74 wrote:
| Of course climate has changed in the past, but over
| geological time scales. We're witnessing change in real
| time, over a period of decades. It's the _rate of change_
| in climate that is accelerating.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > why haven't we seen mass death from repeated 35 breaches?
|
| Because we haven't seen very many 35 _wet bulb temperature_
| breaches yet. The nominal air temperature is much higher than
| that all the time around the world, but it 's only when there
| is very high humidity at that temp that humans start to
| overheat.
|
| IIRC there have only been a few instances so far where the
| web bulb temp limit has been breached, e.g. some instances
| around the Persian Gulf, and maybe also in Mexico near the
| Gulf of California (not sure about the latter if it's even
| been breached yet, but I know it's at risk).
|
| Edit: Wikipedia page has a list,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-
| bulb_temperature#Highest_r.... There have only been 10
| recorded instances where wet bulb temp exceeded 35C.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Air conditioning? Most of the areas most at risk for high wet
| bulb temperatures already rely heavily on air conditioning to
| be habitable.
|
| We'd be in serious trouble if we had a power failure
| triggered by a heat wave, which IIRC was a near miss in the
| central US heat wave last summer.
| jcranmer wrote:
| The breach is in wet-bulb temperature, not dry-bulb
| temperature. When you hear weather reports cover the
| temperature, then it's going to be the dry-bulb temperature--
| the actual temperature of the air.
|
| Wet-bulb temperature is the minimum temperature you can reach
| by evaporative cooling (i.e., sweating). When wet-bulb
| temperature gets too close to core body temperature, you are
| physically incapable of shedding heat if you are not in air-
| conditioning, and how close it needs to be depends on how
| good health you are in.
|
| But we actually have seen deaths in previous heat waves,
| which largely didn't even breach 30C wet-bulb. The 2003
| European heat wave caused about 70,000 people to die, for
| example.
| glitcher wrote:
| TIL about heat index being a combination of temperature and
| humidity to arrive at a perceived temperature (in the shade
| apparently, why?).
|
| Started plugging in some numbers into a heat index calculator
| just for kicks (https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/heat-
| index).
|
| I live in a very hot and dry area, and noticed that at 15%
| humidity the heat index matches temperature, below 15% results in
| a heat index below the temperature, and above 15% gives a heat
| index above the temperature.
| seanhunter wrote:
| I believe it's measured in the shade only so it's a true
| measure of the air temperature and isn't affected by the direct
| heat transfer from the sunlight. (eg
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/dennismersereau/2021/06/30/the-...
| )
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| That's my understanding too. In fact, the hottest surface
| temperature recorded on Earth is much higher than the
| official temperature record because a surface gathers heat
| not only from air convection/conduction but direct radiation
| as well.
|
| > Temperatures measured directly on the ground may exceed air
| temperatures by 30 to 50 degC (54 to 90 degF).[6] The highest
| natural ground surface temperature ever recorded may have
| been an alleged reading of 93.9 degC (201.0 degF) at Furnace
| Creek, California, United States, on 15 July 1972.[7] In
| 2011, a ground temperature of 84 degC (183.2 degF) was
| recorded in Port Sudan, Sudan. [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Mea
| sur...
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Back when I was a kid, the Australian Open in Melbourne,
| already in summer, was plagued by periods where they
| stopped play due to heat.
|
| Filling the void and dead air time, commentators resorted
| to demos like "frying an egg on center court" to show just
| how hot it was.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > (in the shade apparently, why?)
|
| Because the effect of the sun induces massive, extremely
| localized variations in apparent temperature. Are you wearing a
| black shirt or a white shirt? That changes apparent sun
| temperature. What is the color of the ground you're standing
| on? What is the material, for that matter?
|
| Note that all of these effects will only increase the
| temperature (during daytime, at least). The shade temperature
| is thus a good indicator of what the coolest possible outdoor
| environment will be.
| Rygian wrote:
| The heat index measures your body's ability to regulate its
| temperature by sweating. Higher ambient humidity limits the
| effectiveness of sweating.
|
| At "wet bulb temperature" your sweat doesn't cool you down
| anymore.
| tmaly wrote:
| I tried doing tennis in the Philippines before. I only lasted
| about 3 minutes before I had to sit down.
|
| The heat there in the summer is no joke.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > The air conditioning is set at 14-18 C during the hottest part
| of the day
|
| I wonder what actual temperature that gives them. I'd expect that
| whatever temperature they set below 25C would have the AC go full
| power either way, and never reach that target until at night
| perhaps.
| Gys wrote:
| Comments here on the temperature fail to add WBT is related to a
| high humidity.
|
| 'The wet-bulb temperature (WBT) is the temperature read by a
| thermometer covered in water-soaked (water at ambient
| temperature) cloth (a wet-bulb thermometer) over which air is
| passed.'
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature
|
| Edit: because a high humidity means the body cannot cool anymore
| by sweating. A higher temperature combined with dry air is
| generally not a life threatening situation (if you stay in de
| shade and drink a lot of water).
| LASR wrote:
| Can someone help me understand the thermodynamics behind this?
|
| My naive understanding would be that if the temperature > human
| body temperature, we can only gain heat from the environment,
| leading to death. Obviously sweating is involved. But how?
| elbasti wrote:
| Evaporative cooling is one of physics's great magic tricks.
|
| Basically, when we talk about a substance's temperature, that
| temperature is the average temperature of the system.
|
| Temperature is just "how quickly are the atoms/molecules here
| jiggling?" When the atoms/molecules collide, some of them speed
| up, some slow down. That means that some atoms are "hotter"
| than the average temperature, and some are cooler.
|
| Liquids have a certain energy above which a molecule is ejected
| from the puddle. This is evaporation.
|
| Even if the _average_ temperature (read: energy) is below that
| threshold energy, _some molecules are moving faster_ , because
| they have collided with other molecules in just the right way.
| Those fast molecules get ejected. Evaporation!
|
| But now that the puddle lost the fast (read: hot, read: high
| energy) molecules, the average energy of the system is lower.
| The whole thing cools down!
|
| In dry environments, it's possible for sweat to evaporte (cool)
| at a rate that is faster than the rate at which your body heats
| up from hot colliding air.
|
| In humid environments two things happen: evaporation slows
| down, and you heat up faster.
|
| So there is a combination of temperature & humidity at which,
| if either of those parameters is exceeded, you gain heat faster
| than you lose it.
| rolph wrote:
| thermokinetic energy is required for water to transition from
| liquid to vapor. when heat [thermokinetic motion] spreads from
| the body to the liquid water, this is a net loss loss of heat
| from the body as water transitions to vapor phase and diffuses
| away from the body. if surrounding air is already saturated
| with vapor [relative humidity 100%] no evaporation can occur at
| a temperature, that humans will survive
| jcranmer wrote:
| The goal of human metabolism is to maintain a consistent body
| temperature. Metabolism creates heat (as a byproduct of doing
| useful work) that needs to be shed, this is in addition to the
| natural heat flux.
|
| Heat flux is proportional to temperature difference, and is
| solely in the direction of hot to cold.
|
| Let us suppose that at 27 C, the natural heat generation is
| shed, and let us also suppose that the core body temperature is
| 37 C. (The actual values don't matter, but this feels
| approximately correct and gives nice round numbers). In this
| case, if the temperature is below 27 C, then we are losing too
| much heat and our body temperature will decrease. If it is
| above 27 C but below 37 C, we're not shedding our body heat
| fast enough, so body temperature will increase. If it is above
| 37 C, then the environment is actually adding excess heat into
| our body instead of cooling it--and we still have natural
| metabolic heat to shed.
|
| So we have three main mechanisms we use to regulate body
| temperature.
|
| The first mechanism is to change the heat flux: by changing our
| clothing, we can control heat loss. This is obviously more
| effective for cold temperatures than warm temperatures.
|
| The second mechanism is to change our internal heat generation.
| For example, staying more active in cold conditions or being
| less active in hot conditions. The response of shivering is in
| fact an attempt to generate extra heat to mitigate heat loss.
|
| The final mechanism is to use evaporative cooling. Converting
| liquid water to gas requires energy. So if you coat yourself in
| water that gets evaporated, it actively sucks heat away from
| you in the process. The wet-bulb temperature is a measurement
| of the coolest you can make something in this method... and
| that's why wet-bulb temperatures near body temperature are
| lethal: it's the point at which you just cannot shed any heat
| whatsoever.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| You forgot:
|
| 4) Increase/decrease the blood flow towards our skin and
| arms/legs.
|
| This is why in hot conditions, blood vessels may widen, the
| heart pumps harder to increase core <-> skin heat exchange,
| and you see people blushing.
|
| In turn, this "heart pumps harder" (or failing to do so) may
| worsen other conditions (especially in older people), and eg.
| contribute to kidney failure (and that in turn, to blood
| poisoning).
| jcranmer wrote:
| That's a form of increasing heat flux, #1.
| spacetimeuser5 wrote:
| Here you are, monkeys. Get now more of your cheap headset.
| rekabis wrote:
| BuT cLiMaTe ChAnGe Is FaKe!!!1!
| logtempo wrote:
| 70% of workers worlwide will be put at risk with climate change.
| https://www.axios.com/2024/04/22/workers-excessive-heat-unit...
|
| also let's not forget that there are animals too who suffer. And
| thy don't have AC, water bottle, or fridge to live.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| The heat dome in BC in 2021 was brutal. My car showed 47*C (not
| exactly scientific but it gives you an idea) and the LCD display
| on the dash started to malfunction. It was like the contrast was
| off. I'd only seen that before in extreme cold.
|
| With the high humidity in the area, it was quite dangerous. An
| estimated 600 deaths due to the heat.
|
| I'm sorry the people of the Philippines are going through this.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-04-24 23:02 UTC)