Shitty news yes, but if that temperature means “you die”, why isn’t everyone without AC in that zone dead? Sensationalism does no one’s cause any good.
like @Bbshot said, this picture is for wet bulb GLOBE temperature which isn’t the same as the deadly wet bulb temperature in the article. Lazy/uninformed at best, misinformation at worst.
I’ve been without AC in Seville on a rowing competition with +40C, so basically no shade while doing heavy activity. It’s true that we went to drink water and to the shade the moment we unloaded the boats, and that there was a recommendation to stay inside just in case, bu there were no reported deaths in 3-4 days.
This was an extreme, 42C ish, but I’ve been on 32 or 34 and while it’s really uncomfortable (more because of humidity than heat but oh well), it’s not mortally bad.
40C by itself isn’t life threatening if the humidity isn’t as high. The temperatures on their own regarding this heatwave were about 38C, but with the high humidity, the heat index exceeded 49C. I’m seeing a death toll of at least 14 so far.
if you don’t have AC, you need to get creative. you need to avoid being in that kind of heat and humidity, or lower the body temp through means other than evaporative cooling. if you can get underground, the temp will be lower, for instance. or you can get that underground coldness from your tap, and take a cold bath. strap ice packs to your body. whatever, but the situation is desparate.
anyways, there are ways to survive, but a wet bulb temp of 95F (equivalent to a heat index of about 160F) is considered the theoretical limit on human survivability, so it is unsurprising that people have died from this heat wave.
clearly the author of this tweet has never been camping in the summer. you don’t die just because you’re outside with no AC. if that were true none of this ever would’ve gotten built because AC is a relatively recent invention. the Southeast certainly was hot and humid before climate change; and yes now it’s getting worse, but this take is pretty sensational.
you don’t die just because you’re outside with no AC
At wet-bulb temperatures of 35 °C or above you do, actually, if you’re exposed to them for longer. Your body can then no longer cool by sweating and just keeps getting heated up by the environment. And old people in partiuclar do regularly die due to heat even at much lower wet-bulb temperaturs.
Good thing we have AC
