(Replying to PARENT post)

Just a personal anecdote to provide some context of how hot it really is.

I'm from the south of India and now live in Europe. My body tolerates heat quite well compared to my European friends. I remember tolerating 38-40C indoor temperatures and sleeping through it with heavy sweating. But air temperature of 42C is where I draw the line. It is almost biologically impossible to survive this.

So this story isn't just about record high temperatures, it's about record high temperatures that coincide with biological limits. If air temperature reaches 44C, it's impossible to survive this without artificial cooling and I predict a state of emergency will be declared every summer starting 2030.

There's one additional factor. The hottest months in the equator are June to August. This happens to coincide with the monsoon season in India. So I remember dreading May but looking forward to the monsoon in June. If climate change messes with the monsoon season, the Indian subcontinent is f'ed.

👤iknownothow🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

This is also known as the wet bulb temperature, and it is a function of the humidity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

If I were in a position of decision making in India, I would invest in large deployments of passive radiative cooling films: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/energy-conservation-us/applicati...

These reflect nearly all the sunlight energy and cool their surroundings night and day by controlled black body emmisive radiation. (interestingly, for cooling applications, per unit area they are more power efficient than solar panels + AC, because solar only is working during the day, whereas passive cooling films also work at night)

👤mensetmanusman🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I live in a suburb of Delhi and to be honest it is not just the occasional days that it stays that high. This year it has consistently been above 40C since late March. Summer has just started and the hottest months are generally May and June. So, it is going stay like this for more than three months this year in all. Even worse is that unlike desert regions, even the night temperatures here stay above 30C many times during this part of the year. Sometimes you open the window at night expecting it to be better only to realize that a hot "breeze" is blowing.

Owing to the pandemic, I had spent the last couple of years in the foothills of the Himalaya where the temperature rarely went beyond 30C. It has been really hard coping up with the heat as it literally sucks the life out of you.

Ref: https://www.accuweather.com/en/in/delhi/202396/april-weather...

👤akrain🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

> If air temperature reaches 44C, it's impossible to survive this without artificial cooling

Humidity is the other key factor though.

When younger I remember a day of walking all around Phoenix for many hours on a day where it was 122F (50C) and while it felt like being inside an oven, it was ok because humidity was close to 0%.

But high humidity with high temperatures is what makes it unsurvivable.

👤jjav🕑3y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I grew up in Las Vegas where summer would hit 120-124 F. Very dry heat. Sometimes in August it would rain for a day. Then moved to Arizona where it would hit 125 F once in awhile. Melt your brain.
👤bigboy12🕑3y🔼0🗨️0