Heatwaves loom as a growing threat to humanity in a warming climate. This summer alone, in the northern hemisphere, thousands have died during extreme heat events. It's driving researchers to find out more about the point when heat turns deadly.
The “first time”? Maybe in a controlled environment, but certainly not the first time. People already die from heat exhaustion around the world.
Also, the deadly factor really seems to be time rather than heat and humidity. Saunas are 65-90c with very high humidity and those are generally fine as long as you don’t stay in too long.
Tell me that you haven’t read it without telling me that you haven’t read it
Owen has been put into the climate chamber by Jem Cheng, a research fellow at the Heat and Health Research Centre at the University of Sydney.
It’s part of a world-first study all about finding out at what point heat becomes deadly.
Fifteen years ago, scientists proposed an environmental threshold at which no person would be able to survive for six hours.
But these conditions have never been tested on humans.
Until now.
“This study is all about human survivability,” Dr Cheng says.
“So we are the first to actually put people in these environments to actually see, physiologically, what is happening to their core temperature or to their heart rate.
What this new model shows is, when you take into account the limitations of human physiology, these upper wet-bulb temperature limits look as though they are much lower under certain types of conditions.”
The “first time”? Maybe in a controlled environment, but certainly not the first time. People already die from heat exhaustion around the world.
Also, the deadly factor really seems to be time rather than heat and humidity. Saunas are 65-90c with very high humidity and those are generally fine as long as you don’t stay in too long.
Tell me that you haven’t read it without telling me that you haven’t read it
I did read it. All of those conditions have been experienced by humans, just perhaps not in a lab controlled study.
My problem is the clickbait headline. Its a bad headline.