wet bulb temperature

By now, everybody already knows about the heat wave sweeping the planet. Today's Moody Monday post delves into this problem.

We know that the 15 hottest days in Earth's recorded history were in this month, the hottest month on record. It's not just the northern hemisphere which is experiencing its summer. Even in Antarctica (where it's currently winter), the sea ice extent has dropped to astonishing low area. We know that in the USA, some emergency rooms are swamped by people needing care after heat exposures. We know that people in Arizona are being treated for burns after falling to the ground... the hot, hot, literally burning-to-human-flesh ground.

Read the depressing details...

The temperatures we're experiencing were predicted, but they were predicted for the future. When scientists are wrong about climate change, it's usually because we're achieving terrible new conditions sooner than they expected. The North Atlantic sea surface temperature anomaly (pictured at right) is now so extraordinary that the scientist publicizing the rise has had to increase the temperature axis more than once to accommodate the new numbers. Remember that El Niño has barely begun. NASA predicts that 2024 will have even higher temperatures than 2023. This party is just getting started.

After the 2 hikers were found dead in an area experiencing 45C/114F heat, I figured that the time has finally arrived that everyone needs to know about web bulb temperature (WBT). The name, luckily, is very straightforward:

"If you slide a wet cloth over the bulb of a thermometer, the evaporating water from the cloth will cool the thermometer down. This lower temperature is the WBT, which cannot go above the dry temperature. If humidity in the surrounding air is high, however – meaning the air is already more saturated with water – less evaporation will occur, so the WBT will be closer to the dry temperature."
- https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-worry-about-the-wet-bulb-temperature

The important thing to know is that if wet bulb temperature exceeds your human tolerance, then you die quickly. Sweating doesn't help, so keeping hydrated doesn't help. It also won't help to sit in the shade or use a fan, because it's the same wet bulb temperature there and you aren't evaporating sweat. The environment is hostile to human life at those high temperatures. What temperature is that, exactly? It could be a wet bulb temperature of 35C/95F, but it could be lower. There is some uncertainty. From now on, the weather will need to include "wet bulb temperature" in addition to straight thermometer (dry bulb) temperature and heat index.

• The only short term solution for wet bulb temperatures that exceed human tolerance is to find a location with colder temperatures.
• The only long term solution for wet bulb temperatures that exceed human tolerance is to stop our carbon and methane emissions immediately. Any politician who says we have sufficient time to wait is lying to you. Now, finally, do you understand why Scientist Rebellion is a real thing, with bookish scientists risking time in jail in order to make you pay attention to this crisis? The air could literally cook your brain inside your own skull, and the ground can already cook the meat on your bones. Do you understand now why Extinction Rebellion exists?

What are these extreme temperatures doing to the plants and animals on which our civilization depends? Stop asking pesky questions, you longhair hippy treehugger.