• fearout@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Reposting my comment from another similar thread ‘cause I think it’s kind of important to add.

    Ok, so it doesn’t mention wet bulb temperature anywhere, so I went to figure it out. The first thing I was surprised with is apparently most of online calculators don’t take in values higher than 50C.

    I couldn’t find the exact data about humidity for that day, but it has been 35-40%+ at a minimum for most days in that region, sometimes even reaching 90%.

    So, 52C at around 40% humidity is 37.5C in wet bulb temp. The point of survivability is around 35, and most humans should be able to withstand 37.5 for several hours, but it’s much worse for sick or elderly. 39 is often a death sentence even for healthy humans after just two hours — your body can no longer lose heat and you bake from the inside. That’s like having an unstoppable runaway fever. And with that humidity it’s reached at 54C.

    We’re dangerously close to that.

    • eek2121@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      An absolute death sentence for folks without air conditioning or another means to stay cool.

      • fearout@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        It’s a bit different depending on your health and all that. But 35 WBT is a definite point for everyone (since our bodies run at 36–37C). Kinda like the difference between “some will die” and “most will die”.

        • PeleSpirit@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          From @beigegat’s article it says that from real expieriences it’s 31.5C

          The oft-cited 35C value comes from a 2010 theoretical study. However, research co-authored by Kenney this year found that the real threshold our bodies can tolerate could be far lower. “Our data is actual human subject data and shows that the critical wet-bulb temperature is closer to 31.5C,” he says.

        • beigeoat@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          I mean to say that the wet bulb temperature at which most will die is ~31.5°C, the gaurdian report I linked is saying that the 35°C number comes from a 2010 study, whereas the findings of the 2022 study found the number to be much lower ~31.5°C.

    • AstroKevin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t want to be rude, and I completely am all for combating climate change, but 39C is not baking your insides…

      I have been deployed to multiple places that were 52C (~125F) in the day/night with high humidity levels, in full long sleeve/pants for 8 hours at a time. 39C (~102F) is hot, but not bake you from the inside type of hot.

      Elderly and sick are people not included in what I said above for obvious reasons.

      • fearout@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I find it pretty funny that people are arguing both “35 WBT is pretty fine” and “31.5 WBT is a death sentence”.

        Yet somewhere in that range seems to be the consensus for an actual “your body is on the clock and you’re not surviving it for a prolonged time” situation.

        I don’t know your personal experience and how dangerous it was in regards to temperature, but high temperature environments start feeling pretty humid at like ~50%, so you still pretty much need an actual temperature/humidity reading to gauge it correctly.

        So guys, take it to the scientists :) I’m not talking out of my ass here, rather quoting research data. There are a couple dozen papers listed in the link above, and most seem to agree on the dangerous temp region. Read their methodology and reasoning if you’re interested to learn more.

    • Crucible_Fodder@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, that makes me think that data was just wrong. Every homeless in the area would be dead with those temps and humidities.

      • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Homeless have been dying during summer and winter for years. It’s just, as with too many things, the new normal and not newsworthy. If they started dying from critical weather I’m not sure we would even know.

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Every homeless in the area would be dead with those temps and humidities.

        Shhhh … don’t give the elites running our planet another reason to ignore global warming.