How do soldiers in thick body armor and uniforms in 125 Fahrenheit not die of heatstroke!
That’s an infrared temperature sensor. It tells the temperature of the surface it’s pointed at, not the air. What that photo shows is that the pavement in the shade is 120°, the pavement in the sun is 139°, and the black vinyl dashboard of the vehicle is 159°.
But they’re not air temperatures. The shaded pavement could be indicative of the air temperature, assuming that it wasn’t sitting in the sun before the reading was taken. Not coincidentally, that’s the reading that’s closest to the official temperature readings.
Lots of hydration, this from a report in the beginning of the occupation. Iraqis were amazed to see the GI’s and Marines, in full armor patroling in the height of the summer.
Declan
I used to call BS on this stuff when I was deployed. I was in Kuwait, and left in early June. The hottest I saw was 116 on one day. We had regular highs in the 110 range, and lows in the mid-90s, so it was darn hot, but I was working on the port on the Gulf, and a few people would set up a temperature station for wet/dry bulb temperatures and they’d do it in the sun on the port pier pavement. These would spike over 125 easily, but the air temp was definitely not that hot.
As to hydration…TONS of water. We had unlimited access to giant coolers filled with 1.5L bottles of water, plus some Gatorade and pop from time to time. On a regular day, I’d probably drink 6 of the 1.5L bottles, plus several other beverages each day (and I was doing mostly admin work overseeing port operations, so not heavy labor), and I’d generally only go to the bathroom 2-3 times.
Reports from US servicemen are fallacious, that the temperature and humidity are both 100. This is impossible. The highest dewpoint ever recorded on earth is 95, and the humidity can only be 100% then if the temperature is 95. There are many days when the humidity is 100% early in the morning, but when the temperature rises above the dewpoint, the humidity falls rapidly below 100%. By the time the temperature reaches about 120, the humidity willl have fallen into maybe the 30-40% range.
Those high dewpoints in the 90’s occur occasionally in Iraq, but only along the Persian Gulf lowlands. It is incredibly “tacky”-feeling when the dewpoint is in the 90s. When the dewpoint and temperature are the same, no perspiration evaporates, even in a breeze. I experienced such a condition on the coast of Saudi Arabia late one afternoon, I was driving in the desert with no shade in a car without AC, and it was literally like being in a steambath fully clothed while outdoors exposed to solar heating.
I think some people just like to exaggerate. I had a friend in boston who called me once and said it was 100 there. I looked it up on weather.com and it was 86.
Not only is it old, but the OP died several years ago.