Why does a 40 Celsius weather kill scores in Europe and Japan, but the people of the Middle East have no problem living in weather even hotter than that?
In: Biology
Just because you don’t read it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Do you read Arabic news? Nearly all Middle Eastern countries are not democratic countries with free press. Authoritarian regimes are unlikely to allow report of any news that paints them in bad light.
It’s not as humid. They are used to it and wear clothes suited for the weather. Buildings that aren’t air conditioned allow a flow of air through that cools but it’s still hot. The temp, especially in the desert drops down almost to freezing so the morning temp has to work harder to get up to speed.
We measure temperature using a so-called *dry bulb*, that is, a thermometer that is dry.
What is more relevant for human survival is *wet bulb temperature*, which is measured by wrapping a wet cloth around the bulb of the thermometers.
When the wet bulb temperature reaches 35°C or 95°F people begin to become unable to use their natural evaporative cooling system, sweating, and our core body temperatures rise rapidly, so rapidly that even consuming cold drinks may not be effective.
The hundreds of thousands of metabolic processes that keep us alive are based largely of molecules that are sensitive to heat. If a person is either too hot or too cold, then these proteins slow down and eventually stop.
There are both natural environmental factors and built environmental factors. Humid heat is much more dangerous/hot feeling than the dry desert heat of the Middle East. And more importantly, the Middle East is built to deal with the heat… extensive air conditioning, shade, etc. are part of the built environment… they only spend limited amounts of time outside and they can control the inside temps. But in Europe, very little is air conditioned, so there is nowhere to go to escape the heat. It’s hot outside and it’s also hot inside.
Aside from people in those regions being acclimated to the heat, people die over there to heat exposure all the time too. But it’s a regular occurrence so it doesn’t make national or international news.
Someone died in my town in a highway auto accident, you didn’t hear about it.
A heat wave where it regularly doesn’t get hot is unusual, so the deaths from it are also unusual.
It rarely reaches 40 degrees anywhere for any length of time – certianly not where people live. But one reason why it affects people more in otherwise tremperate zones is that such heat here is usually accompanied by high humidity, which means your body is less able to control its core temperature by sweating, because your sweat evaporates more slowly (due to the already saturated air).
* people can become physically acclimated to heat
* people can become culturally acclimated to heat, structuring their day so they don’t work when it is hottest
* in much of Europe and Japan, it usually doesn’t get hot enough to justify air conditioning
* similarly, their buildings are designed for cold weather, not hot
* all the people susceptible to heat are already dead in countries where it is often very hot, rather than dying in newsworthy clusters
* hot countries are often less developed, have less precise record-keeping, and more accidental deaths…”8 succumb to heat” doesn’t make headlines over “30 die in building fire” or “200 die from ebola”
* those hot, less developed countries often have authoritarian regimes and government-controlled media, that often are not interesting in printing bad domestic news
* in developed countries, there is a bias toward news from other developing countries
I used to live in Dubai, but am currently experiencing a Dutch summer that is worse than anything I ever felt there, the diffence is air conditioning.
Literally every business, home and bus stop has AC in the middle east and during the summer you never go outside for more than a few minutes at a time. In Europe you sit, and you sweat because it’s only for ~2 weeks.
For reference I’m Irish so I find anything over 25C unpleasant.
I just got back from volunteering in New Delhi, India which can reach up to 43c or 110F every day. What I notice is they have to adapt their lives to dealing with the heat.
You don’t go out from 12-3pm because it’s too hot. Kids stay up late playing outside than sleep in to avoid the heat. Everyone wears paper-thin clothes which means your pants rip like crazy. The women wear either head scarfs to protect themselves from the sun or carry umbrellas. Men carry rags just for whipping the sweat off themselves. I literally could not wear makeup because you’re always sweating.
In Canada, whenever there is a heat wave of 30+ C the majority of us will insert an ice cube in to the rectum, it works like a charm. Give that a try…works every time.
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