Scientists Studying Temperature at Which Humans Spontaneously Die With Increasing Urgency [View all]

[Javaman]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/93ynm5/scientists-studying-temperature-at-which-humans-spontaneously-die-with-increasing-urgency

"Wet-bulb" conditions are when heat and humidity can cause otherwise healthy humans to overheat and die. They're happening more often than ever.

Last week’s historic heatwave saw portions of the Northwest breaking all-time temperature records and gearing up for wildfire risk. The temperatures are now being attributed to an excess of 100 deaths across the region as it gears up for another week of extreme highs.

The heat can feel apocalyptic, and scientists are increasingly studying the heat and humidity conditions at which some humans suddenly die, a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly common as a result of extreme weather driven by climate change. This is perhaps best illustrated in a study published last year in Science Advances, alarmingly titled "The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance."

Originally, conditions like this weren't expected until the mid 21st century, according to climate models. But they are actually already here. In that study, Radley Horton, Lamont Research Professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and co-authors surveyed weather station data from across the world, collected between 1979 and 2017, and found over 7,000 instances of so-called "wet bulb" conditions, which can lead to human deaths. Wet bulb temperature is the point at which humidity and heat hit a point where evaporation due to sweat no longer works to cool a person. Most of these wet bulb conditions were concentrated in South Asia, the coastal Middle East, and southwest North America (areas denoted in red and orange on a map Horton and his colleagues created, below).

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