[Newsbot]

Title: Persian Gulf may become too hot for humans, study suggests
Category: Environmental
Posted By: Winnipegger
Date: 2015-10-29 01:54:24
Canadian

[Winnipegger]

The CBC webpage doesn't allow comments. My first reaction is "Bull shit". I lived in Miami from the beginning of June 1999 through end of March 2000. I first lived in a hotel, then a temporary apartment for one month, then a regular apartment. The first day in the regular apartment I set the air conditioner to 72°F. But when I returned home from work, I found it frigid! I had to set it to 80°F to be comfortable. Outdoors during the day it often got between 90-100°F. Weather statistics for Miami says June-August the average daily high is 31-32°C (87.8-89.6°F), average daily low 24-25°C (75.2-77°F). But some days were above 95°F (35°C). And it's just as humid in Miami as any Gulf state. In the summer it often rained just about quitting time; the question was whether rain would stop before it was time to go home. Rain was so hard you couldn't see the next building across the street downtown, it was solid grey. I enjoyed warm sunny days. Often walked to the downtown mall on Saturdays. Went to South Beach occasionally. This article claims humans cannot survive 35°C with high humidity. I did, and enjoyed it.

The article also claims "Over the course of human evolution, Earth hasn't seen that kind of prolonged, oppressive heat and humidity before." Again I have to call Bull Shit. The genus Homo started with Australopithecus, oldest skeletons dated 3 million years ago. There have been several ice ages and several interglacial periods over that time, every 100,000 years. The height of each interglacial period is warmer than today. The last major ice age began 2.6 million years ago, we are in the Holocene interglacial period. If you only count major ice ages, then Australopithecus did live during the last major interglacial, and it was warmer than today. In fact, during a major interglacial, the northern polar ice cap completely melts every summer, the Sahara Desert grows to a maximum larger than today, and Antarctica develops a taiga forest like Alaska, Yukon, or Northwest Territory today. Technically, our planet still isn't fully out of the last ice age because the Greenland, Arctic, and Antarctic ice sheets still exist.

Humans have adapted to live in every environment on this planet. Our ancestors lived in the Siberia during the ice age, with stone tools. Paleontologists found when modern humans migrated out of Africa, they moved to Europe and Siberia. They actually migrated to Siberia at the beginning of the last minor ice age, which started about 130,000 years ago. When the last minor ice age ended, Siberia became wet, carrots and other plants died out in favour of woody plants and grass, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and giant horses died out. Humans probably hunted the last to extinction. Reindeer and caribou thrived, because they eat woody plants. But with big game gone, humans migrated from Siberia to China. I find it amazing they moved to Siberia at the beginning of the ice age, and moved out at the end. During that time, humans evolved, they adapted to the climate. And some people wonder why they evolved flat faces, small noses, and eyelids that fold at the eyelash rather than top of eyeball, and fat in the eyelid. That's to keep the eyes warm in Siberia in winter during the ice age.


We also adapted to live in arid areas of Africa. In the Sahel (edge of the Sahara), and right in the Sahara desert itself. Polynesian people spread across islands of the Pacific. All without air conditioning. We'll adapt.

[DrCaleb]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

Humans have adapted to live in every environment on this planet.

. . . over time. That's the key. The human body can't take that kind of heat for more than a few minutes. They are already experiencing hundreds of people dying in the heat they already have. Up it by 20 degrees, and the place will be uninhabitable during the daytime.

[N_Fiddledog]

As far as what's happening currently...

$1:

Cold temperatures kill about 20 times as many people worldwide as hot temperatures do, say Canadian and international researchers who challenge conventional wisdom that extreme weather events cause the most deaths.

In a study published Wednesday in the medical journal The Lancet, researchers analyzed data on 74 million deaths across countries with climates ranging from cold to subtropical between 1985 and 2012.

Cold deemed deadlier than heat when it comes to weather deaths

In any case the problem with the catastrophe hypothesis in that study is there seems to be a natural cooling mechanism built into weather mechanics involving heat loss through evaporation.

$1:

According to Wikipedia, the hottest temperature ever recorded was 57c (134F) in Death Valley, in 1913. 76c (170F) might not seem like much of a leap from 57c, but the cities Doha, Abu Dhabi and Bandar Abbas are all coastal cities which experience substantial Summer rainfall.

Summer rainfall and storms are natural air conditioning. When temperatures soar, evaporation, convection and storm activity remove vast amounts of excess heat from the surface and transport the heat straight up to the edge of space. The heat laden water vapour keeps rising until it condenses – the vapour simply punches straight through the bulk of the world’s greenhouse blanket, soaring into the upper reaches of the troposphere, until it finds a height at which it can dump its vast store of heat.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/27/c ... e-by-2100/

[DrCaleb]

$1:

According to Wikipedia, the hottest temperature ever recorded was 57c (134F) in Death Valley, in 1913. 76c (170F) might not seem like much of a leap from 57c, but the cities Doha, Abu Dhabi and Bandar Abbas are all coastal cities which experience substantial Summer rainfall.

Summer rainfall and storms are natural air conditioning. When temperatures soar, evaporation, convection and storm activity remove vast amounts of excess heat from the surface and transport the heat straight up to the edge of space. The heat laden water vapour keeps rising until it condenses – the vapour simply punches straight through the bulk of the world’s greenhouse blanket, soaring into the upper reaches of the troposphere, until it finds a height at which it can dump its vast store of heat.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/27/c ... e-by-2100/

The Sous Vide method of cooking an egg is to heat it to 62 degrees for 30 minutes. Predicted temperatures for the Gulf are 70C - 74C.

As heat increases, so does relative humidity. At some point, water doesn't precipitate anymore.

[Thanos]

It's not like anything human is living near the Persian Gulf right now.

[N_Fiddledog]

You lost me Doc. What does cooking eggs in a plastic bag have to do with what's happening in a natural weather environment?

$1:

Sous-vide


Sous-vide (/suːˈviːd/; French for "under vacuum")[1] is a method of cooking in which food is sealed in airtight plastic bags then placed in a water bath or in a temperature-controlled steam environment for longer than normal cooking times—96 hours or more, in some cases—at an accurately regulated temperature much lower than normally used for cooking, typically around 55 °C (131 °F) to 60 °C (140 °F) for meat and higher for vegetables. The intent is to cook the item evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside, and retain moisture.

However in what Worral describes as "natural air conditioning" vapour is free to rise up into cooler altitudes.

[desertdude]

Substantial rain fall my ass. We get a day or so of decent rain every 3 or 4 years. Rest of the time it drizzles for 10-15 mins like 4 to 5 times a year. Just enough to get your car dirty with water spots.

I've forgotten what clouds look like.

[BartSimpson]

If Mecca becomes too hot for human habitation then I hope that millions of Muslims will insist on making the Hajj anyway.

[Tyler_1]

I hope the Persian Cats don't get all overheated.

[DrCaleb]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

You lost me Doc. What does cooking eggs in a plastic bag have to do with what's happening in a natural weather environment?

Because the temperature to cook eggs is lower than that of the predicted natural environment. That might give some indication as to human survivability.

[N_Fiddledog]

Oh, I see. You mean if the Chicken Little scenario were to actually happen.

The alternative hypothesis says what happens before people boil like eggs in plastic bags though, is something like what might be on the way to this.



That's a January rainstorm in Doha.

http://dohanews.co/doha-cleans-up-from- ... y-showers/

In reality though, and currently, more people our dying from cold than heat.

[DrCaleb]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Oh, I see. You mean if the Chicken Little scenario of boiling oceans were to actually happen.

No one said anything about oceans. Project much?

You saw the photos from the article, right?



You read newspapers, right?

$1:

At least 21 people have died and 66 more have been hospitalized as a major heat wave engulfs Egypt and much of the rest of the Middle East.

High humidity levels and temperatures as high as 116.6°F made conditions deadly for Egyptians in Cairo, Marsa Matruh province, and Qena province. All of those who died were over 60, according to Al Jazeera — an age group that’s among the most vulnerable to heat waves.

“There is a big rise in temperature compared with previous years. But the problem is the humidity which is affecting people more,” health ministry spokesman Hossam Abdel Ghaffar told Al Jazeera. “Long exposure under the sun is a killer.”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/0 ... ddle-east/

Thousands died in India this year.

It's not a far fetched scenario, as people already die from the heat in the middle east. Having average temperatures rise 2 degrees by the end of the century will mean an even greater rise in the middle east, because their heat is already highly moderated by the geography.

[DrCaleb]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

In reality though, and currently, more people our dying from cold than heat.

I'll let the Alaskans know that, for their upcoming cooling events.

[BartSimpson]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

You lost me Doc. What does cooking eggs in a plastic bag have to do with what's happening in a natural weather environment?

Because the temperature to cook eggs is lower than that of the predicted natural environment. That might give some indication as to human survivability.

Sorry to poke at you but there have been no end of climate catastrophes that have been predicted and then failed to occur.

The AGW alarmists are starting to come off like fundie Christians with their never-ending predictions of the Second Coming and The End Times.