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Global heating pushes tropical regions towards limits of human livability:
Humans’ ability to regulate their body heat is dependent upon the temperature and humidity of the surrounding air. We have a core body temperature that stays relatively stable at 37C (98.6F), while our skin is cooler to allow heat to flow away from the inner body. But should the wet-bulb temperature – a measure of air temperature and humidity – pass 35C, high skin temperature means the body is unable to cool itself, with potentially deadly consequences.
“If it is too humid our bodies can’t cool off by evaporating sweat – this is why humidity is important when we consider livability in a hot place,” said Yi Zhang, a Princeton University researcher who led the new study, published in Nature Geoscience. “High body core temperatures are dangerous or even lethal.”
The research team looked at various historical data and simulations to determine how wet-bulb temperature extremes will change as the planet continues to heat up, discovering that these extremes in the tropics increase at around the same rate as the tropical mean temperature.
[...] Dangerous conditions in the tropics will unfold even before the 1.5C threshold, however, with the paper warning that 1C of extreme wet-bulb temperature increase “could have adverse health impact equivalent to that of several degrees of temperature increase”. The world has already warmed by around 1.1C on average due to human activity and although governments vowed in the Paris climate agreement to hold temperatures to 1.5C, scientists have warned this limit could be breached within a decade.
This has potentially dire implications for a huge swathe of humanity. Around 40% of the world’s population currently lives in tropical countries, with this proportion set to expand to half of the global population by 2050 due to the large proportion of young people in region. The Princeton research was centered on latitudes found between 20 degrees north, a line that cuts through Mexico, Libya and India, to 20 degrees south, which goes through Brazil, Madagascar and the northern reaches of Australia.
Journal Reference:
Yi Zhang, Isaac Held, Stephan Fueglistaler. Projections of tropical heat stress constrained by atmospheric dynamics, Nature Geoscience (DOI: 10.1038/s41561-021-00695-3)
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @04:40AM (15 children)
No, it would not. You've obviously never stepped foot in TN during the summer or you'd know we're within spitting distance of wet-bulb pretty much year round. 50C in a sealed building with no AC in Austin is a lot more bearable. You can work all day in it so long as you stay hydrated. You can't mow the lawn in 35C at >80% humidity without hitting yourself with the water hose every few passes though; sweat doesn't work because it doesn't evaporate but cool water over the head does.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @04:51AM (10 children)
Pretty sure 80% humidity isn't the same as wrapping a wet cloth around the thermometer.
Isn't that the point of the article? Places getting too hot and humid for people to do anything? Particularly places that don't have access to a plumbing system filled with cool water?
By the way, how many heatstroke deaths does Tennessee have every summer?
(Score: 2, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday March 14 2021, @05:17AM (2 children)
Did they use a Temperature-Humidity-Index in the paper? That would make comparison to places people are familiar with easier. Here's a description of one index: https://www.britannica.com/science/temperature-humidity-index [britannica.com]
The formula is apparently (in F): 15 + (0.4 * (DBT+WBT))
DBT=dry bulb temp
WBT=wet bulb temp
Another formula uses just DBT and Relative Humidity: https://www.pericoli.com/EN/news/120/Temperature-Humidity-Index-what-you-need-to-know-about-it.html [pericoli.com]
NOAA provides a calculator for the "Heat Index" using DBT and RH: https://www.weather.gov/arx/heat_index [weather.gov]
And NOAA's chart is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_index#Table_of_values [wikipedia.org]
It appears that 70% humidity is dangerous from 90-95 F, and extremely dangerous from 96F. I would guess there are parts of the US that hit this range every year. It would also be interesting whether the info used in the paper could be parsed into one of the several Temp-Humidity indexes that already exist, get noted in the weather reports, and with which people are familiar.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday March 14 2021, @11:58AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:42PM
It's not uncommon for us to have a dewpoint of 25-30C, just for reference.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:38PM (6 children)
No, 80% != 100%. It is, however, close-e-fucking-nough to make a relevant statement on the topic. The Dubai nonsense was just flat out unrelated, because who's the hottest wasn't anyone's point.
Yes, and my point is that it's as wrong as it's possible to be since hominids have been surviving temps and humidity that bad or worse for longer than homo sapiens have even existed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @04:44PM (4 children)
Try it without your AC and plumbing for a while. And the article is about places where temp+humidity is expected to go above what humans have been dealing with for millennia.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:03AM (3 children)
And you reckon we won't be able to find adaptations this time, with all the knowledge we've accrued, unlike every other temperature range we've adapted to throughout history? And you wonder why folks like you get called hysterical idiots...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @06:18AM (2 children)
Depends on the temperatures/humidity and available infrastructure. And whether we can adapt isn't the same as saying we will adapt. I mean, it's possible for folks to live on Antarctica but I don't see a large land grab there. Nor in the deep deserts, unless there's a handy river. And either way, the point is that there will have to be adaptions from the current situation.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:31PM
So? There have had to be adaptations to changing conditions all throughout human history. And we're damned good at it. It's why there are so bloody many of us while it's pretty hard to find a woolly mammoth. The ice ages were a lot more difficult to deal with than a couple degrees worth of temperature rise. Is your complaint really that you might be horribly inconvenienced by having to do what the species has done its entire existence?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 15 2021, @05:17PM
If you can't be bothered, then why should I be bothered? The disease is the cure.
Such a land grab is presently illegal by treaty with that law enforced by the most powerful nations of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @06:34PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @08:59AM (3 children)
Remind me why CA sucks again and how everyone is leaving....for TN, I presume?
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:39PM
Would you like a list or would insane taxes (we don't even have a state income tax) and no fucking electricity cover it well enough?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 15 2021, @03:24PM (1 child)
Maybe not for TN, but for TX, they sure are.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 16 2021, @02:02PM
TN's the top destination for CA refugees, TX is #3 or #4. Last I looked anyway.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.