- Re: an explanation of wet bulb temperature...
Posted by John Monro
on November 17, 2021, 4:51 pm, in reply to "At 4 C the human body loses its ability to cool itself by sweating."
| Der, you’re right about the likely problem in a warming world that there will be places that become uninhabitable because you cannot cool yourself by sweating. It's good you've pointed this out as one of the incredibly serious effects of global warming. But I’m not sure where you get the 4 deg C from. The issue is the “wet bulb temperature” - that’s a high temperature associated with high humidity, as the human body cannot loose heat by the evaporation of sweat, which is literally vital. The wet bulb temperature has to be around 35 deg C for this to occur. It’s not known if this level has ever been experienced around the planet, but as the world warms, even at 2 deg C, it is predicted it could do so, 4 deg C is just worse and makes it much more likely, and affecting more areas.. Areas of the world likely to be affected include around the Persian Gulf, South Asia and the Indo-Gangetic plain, and the north China plain, and central America. These are among some of the most populous places on the planet. If the wet bulb temperature exceeds 35 deg C, without air conditioning, you will die of heat stroke within a few hours, outdoors or indoors, even if completely still. It is literally unsurvivable. But any wet bulb temperature above 30 deg C is dangerous and precludes any serious manual work outdoors or indoors without air conditioning. Even if the wet bulb temperature isn’t high enough to actually kill you how can you have a functioning society if no-one can work outside? There are excellent articles on the internet such as https://climate-preparedness.com/understanding-wet-bulb-temperature-and-why-it-is-so-dangerous/ and https://www.thedailystar.net/environment/global-warming/climate-change-bangladesh-weather-condition-heat-wave-turn-deadly-century-science-advances-study-1443001 |