1029
Wait, not like that (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 30 points 2 years ago (3 children)

How is AC being a game changer surprising?? When it is hot I see my contacts in the UK sitting with icepacks in their laps or with fans all around them spraying themselves with water. Imagine if the whole room was just a tolerable temperature, it isn't hard to picture. Seems odd.

(Yes I get it just isn't a thing there and they have buildings older than time itself...but still....)

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I just got hit by beryl, it is hell on earth here right now. Now power for two days so far with temps arouns 90-95 f andn%100 humidity. Sleeping is now considered a water sport and no ac in sight.

    The worst part? You cant cool off even with a fan, there's too much humidity forntour sweat to evaporate and cool you. I wish i at least had cold drinks

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, some parts of the US recently experienced something called a wet bulb event. Basically, that’s a phenomenon where the heat and humidity are both so high that your body’s natural cooling mechanism (sweating) stops working entirely and people will overheat simply by being outside. No amount of shade or cool drinks will help, because your body’s primary cooling mechanism has been defeated.

    Basically, sweat works by evaporating. When water evaporates, it takes heat with it. This allows sweat to cool you down as it dries. To be able to accurately determine what the temperature feels like, you can’t just use a regular dry thermometer. You need to use something called a wet bulb thermometer. This is basically a thermometer with some wet cotton wrapped around it, to simulate sweat. As the wet cotton dries, it creates a more accurate gauge of what the ambient temperature feels like, the same way sweat cools you.

    But a wet bulb event is when the wet bulb thermometer reads above 95°F. At that point, it means the cotton isn’t drying fast enough to cool a person down. At this point, the temperatures are dangerous even to fit and healthy individuals in the shade with fans and cool drinks. Because a breeze won’t even cool you down when it’s that hot outside; A fan will actually heat you up even faster, because the air is adding heat faster than evaporative cooling can remove it.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That is basically life down here from may to september lol

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Nah, true wet bulb events are pretty rare. With a wet bulb event, you overheat even while sitting still in the shade with a breeze. Because again, you’ve reached the point where a breeze is actually warming you up instead of cooling you down. They’re becoming more common nowadays due to global warming, but they still only happen occasionally. Again, a wet bulb thermometer will typically read significantly lower than the ambient temperature, because it’s being cooled by evaporation.

    At wet bulb temps in the 90’s, construction crews start delaying, school athletics aren’t allowed to practice outdoors, cities start setting up pop-up cooling centers for the homeless, etc… Even the army limits outdoor work to 10 minutes per hour, because the risk of heat stroke is too high. Wet bulb temps above ~87 are rare, so when it reaches the 90’s emergency management crews go into full blown crisis mode as people start getting heat exhaustion just from walking around the block.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    The other thing in the UK is that screen doors and windows are non-existent so if you want to open them for fresh air you're inviting all the bugs in as well

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    They don't even have screening? Guys wtf get a hardware store that's worth a shit.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    My house always is cool anyway - it's well-insulated so heat doesn't come in unless I open a window, and I open the windows every evening when it's cool outside.

    Air conditioning would just waste energy and increase humidity

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  • [–] 31 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Air condition decreases humidity.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Oh? My workplace has one of these that you fill with water that then cools the water and very slowly sprays it into the air, mixed with air of course. Works well to make the room cooler, but even in the manual it says that it shouldn't be running all the time because the increased humidity can cause mold.

    So which kind of air conditioning are you using?

    (and even when it decreases humidity the other reasons still stand)

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    That's not air con, that's a swamp cooler. Air-conditioning works by the same mechanism your fridge does. And the cool coils condense water vapour in the air, thus reducing humidity.

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  • [–] -4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Haha holy shit...they thought THAT WAS AC?

    This right here is the bare minimum as to why education is so important.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago*

    Just so you know, there are places where people live differently from you.

    Would you expect the same level of knowledge about keeping a house warm at the equator? Because I'd argue you need to better your education if you do.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I'm living in an area where AC is completely unnecessary. About +15°C in warm summer nights (that's when I open my windows to let fresh air in), +30°C peak but all houses here are well-insulated (they have to be because of winter).

    Of course it's different in the USA, you have higher temperatures and don't insulate your houses (a well-insulated house keeps its temperature: it stays warm in winter and cool in summer).

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Lots of places in the US don't even get to a comfortable temperature at night. Right now I'm in Pennsylvania which is pretty far north and the lowest it's going to get tonight is 80F with 80% humidity. It was 100F today with the same humidity. I actually got sick at work from it.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    Honestly, for me a reason why humans shouldn't live in such places. For the Europeans here (that have not much clue of weird American units):

    80 F = 26.667 C

    100 F = 38 C

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    26? It's pretty warm, but not too hot.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Over night, with 80% humidity? Are you sure? I'd be close to hospital with that temperature without some kind of AC, or at the very least ventilation... (I'm sensitive to heat). And sleeping with that temperature even with ventilation is going to be very uncomfortable and not relaxing...

    Also we're talking about lows, so this is likely not the temperature inside when there's no AC, more like 30+C

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    So you're trying to say most of North America is uninhabitable? I'm in North Carolina, the temperature and relative humidity were in the 90's yesterday. It's July.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I mean it's thanks to modern technology not uninhabitable, but we're "wasting" a lot of energy to make it habitable, and this is getting worse in the future, because of climate change. I couldn't imagine living somewhere where, I can't get out (of AC cooled buildings) because it's too hot.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    25º during summer nights either already was or is going to become normal around gigantic areas of the world. Getting all Indians to just live anywhere else is never going to be plausible.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I didn't say it's realistic to move that much people around the globe, it did grow like that historically, but I do think, that migration because of this is becoming a sociodemographic and political problem in somewhere near the future. And is already somewhat in areas that are less wealthy and instable politically (e.g. northern Africa).

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    People live there for many thousand years now and most of the time without ACs. It is defintly inhabitable. We "waste" the energy to make it comfortable.

    Considering the energy we "waste" to make most of Europe inhabitable on the other hand... And here it really is about "inhabitable", because without heating we couldn't live in e.g. Germany.

    If we only lived in areas where it would be comfortable without heating and ACs we'd have to kill of 90% of humanity.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    True, there's a lot of heating necessary to make life comfortable in Europe (but also in USA btw. probably even more, because I'd say the standards for insulation are better in Europe, and temperatures are more extreme more in the center of the continent).

    But it's absolutely possible to live without (most of) the heating, by:

    • Using passive solar energy (even in the winter) + good insulation
    • Clothing! There are ways to help with heat too via evaporation chill though (I'm just sitting here with a cooling west, because I easily overheat, and that makes my life quite bit more comfortable in summer without AC, even or especially outside)

    Though as you correctly notice, the combination of high temperature and humidity is what potentially creates a dangerous climate for life, even with things such as cooling wests in "low" high temperatures (within 30-40C), because evaporation chill stops working, so there are times and places, and these times and places will get more frequent where humans can't survive outside (without some serious technological counter-measures) while with cold temperatures you can always wear (somewhat specialized) clothing.

    Evaporation chill does work even with quite high temperatures, but at some point (and I do think there are places that reach that point), the quite effective human cooling system is not able to catch up anymore (I think somewhere around 50+C IIRC).

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I would still insist that heating is the only way to make much of Europe permanently inhabitable. Yes, houses get more efficient and the energy necessary gets less (same is true for cooling a house though). Still, we had a week of permanent -10°C 1,5a ago. Without heating we'd probably have to count the deaths in the millions for that week alone.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The temperature is not a big problem imo. The humidity though.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Temperature is absolutely a problem. Without getting too deeply technical, a heat index above 99F/37C is dangerous even for healthy adults. Las Vegas this week has seen temperatures up to 120F. The forecast today is for a temperature high of 118F/48C (low of 90F/32C overnight), with a relative humidity of 8%. That works out to be a heat index of 111F/44C.

    Where I am, today's high will be 82F, but humidity is sitting at 90%, which is a heat index of 92F.

    You can also look at wet bulb temperatures; at a certain point, your body can't cool fast enough through evaporative cooling, and you'll die from heat.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago*

    I lived through dry summers around 40°C without ACs without a problem my whole 40+ years of life. But 30°C with a high humidity is a different thing. Much comes down to being accustomed to things though naturally. I have friends who grew up in southern China who get problems when the heat is dry.

    But people live in areas that get 35+°C every year for several month since the beginning of humanity itself.

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