The reason the rooms heat up is because heat comes in from outside. It looks to me like the only real added heat comes from the inefficiency of the process of forcing heat that is coming in from outside, back outside.
Not that I’m pooh-poohing that. The added use of airconditioning during hot weather requires the generation of a lot of electric power, burning of the fuel need etc., etc.
My post isn’t quite true. Heat is also generated inside by the occupants just living, cooking etc. So if the airconditioner maintains the same temperature difference yes, some heat is added to the outside. A little more thought would have prevented me from overlooking this. Oh well.
I work at the only non-air-conditioned Salvation Army Thrift store in the area, and it has been hideous all summer. This week it hasn’t even be that hot outside, but the humidity is sucked in and makes the air suffocating. The fans are not placed well (they are not moveable) and today was Senior Citizen’s discount day. customers hate it, and leave before they get what they want, and us employees have a real tough time of it. The higher ups might fire my manager because sales have been down from last year, but really they should just install the damn a/c already. Sales would skyrocket! I love my job, but the heat really sucks. I drink about 2 1/2 liters of water per shift, and I think I must sweat 75% of it out.
By the way, I am not a huge fan of a/c in most situations- it makes the air seem canned, and it’s not usually necessary in upstate NY, but in a store set up like the Sally Army, it really is needed to cut the humidity.
Well, I’m back. Upon thinking over the question raised by asterion about the NY Times (which I couldn’t read without registering) it seems to me that all the heat that is generated on the surface winds up in the atmosphere one way or another.
For example, say the interior temperature is 70[sup]o[/sup] and the outside is 80[sup]o[/sup]. With that temperature difference there is a certain heat transfer into the interior, cooling the atmosphere slightly. Now people start cooking, running TV’s, moving around and in general generating enough heat that the interior temperature rises to 75[sup]o[/sup]. Now with a temperature difference of only 5[sup]o[/sup] less heat is transferred from the outside to the inside and the atmosphere doesn’t cool as much as before. In effect, the interior heat has been transferred to the outside.
That is without air conditioning. Now it is true that if there is an airconditioner maintaining the original 10[sup]o[/sup] difference more heat is transferred from outside to inside in addition to the internally generated heat and in addition there is the inefficiency of the AC plus that of the generators needed to power it. All in all, running a lot of electrical equipment heats up the atmosphere. But we knew that all the time, didn’t we?
I think your swamp cooler also does that. The incoming air evaporates water which puts the heat into the change of state of the water. That air containing the water vapor is then exhausted carring the heat into the atmosphere. However, that heat won’t affect the temperature until the moisture again condenses. So any change in temperature because of your swamp cooler might be long delayed, but I’m pretty sure that sooner or later that heat shows up as a temperature rise of the atmosphere.
Here is the latest on the heat wave in France.
Down to 82F (28°C) today in Paris and I’m able to get bacl to sleep again at night.
“To produce one calorie of cold you have to generate three calories of heat” - Jean-Louis Plazy, deputy director Agency of Environment France.
Our local paper says:
"Health officials say August is often a time when elderly people find themselves alone, when their families go on vacation.
“They are often alone in Paris when their families go away on holiday,” said health ministry spokeswoman Laurence Danand. “There are a lot of elderly people alone in big cities in August.”"
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/6530522.htm
Just a note: air conditionning isn’t common in France. At all.
Even some hospitals don’t have AC.
As opposed to Germany, where a hospital with A/C is the exception. Sucks for old folks recovering from operations in this heat.
Maybe they just didn’t have the will to fight and surrendered to death.
I would be astonished if, after all of this, we don’t see Paris (and other cities hit hard this summer in Europe) institute a lot of the same safeguards that Chicago has.
And I’d like to thank Paris for taking our usual summer weather this year. It’s been wonderful in Chicago, for a change. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, though.
Right, the French thought the Germans were causing the heat, & instinctively & refexively gave up.
That is a cheap and very nasty remark . Why do you have to sink so low ?
Ok, ignoring the provactive French-baiting, I have a related question.
I always assumed (although this assumption may be totally wrong) that many of the elderly who die during heat waves are probably the ones that are already fairly ill and the heat kinda “speeds up” their final day. Does anyone have any stats on what the death rate is after a heat wave? Does it decrease? How different was Chicago’s mortality rate for the year with the heat wave compared to other years?
I’m doing this strictly based on memory power, so I am not going to claim 100% accuracy…
Back in '95 the majority of the heat-related deaths were elderly folk, and quite a few had complicating issues like heart or respiratory disease. However, about a third (if I recall correctly) did not fall into that category - in other words over 200 deaths in younger, healthier people. I already mentioned we had several joggers fall over in the heat, mostly from heart attacks - some lived and some didn’t, but most were in the 25-40 range. Heat stroke can and does strikes at any age, even in very healthy persons.
And, of course, we had the usual tragedies involving young children in cars and vans.
In addition, we had lots and lots of folks who didn’t die but who nonetheless became sick from the heat. Some were hospitalized with dehydration or heatstroke. Others had heat exhaustion (I think by the time it was over just about everyone had had a brush with that.) Lots of people just plain fainted from the heat at one time or another - including yours truly. It got to be fairly rountine to drag a friend off the street into someplace air conditioned and apply wet towels and fluids. It became a daily occurance for commuters to pass out on buses and trains. If you’re healthy you can recover from this fairly quickly without medical intervention provided you get yourself cooled down quickly enough. It also helps to have folks around who will get your butt to a doctor if you start showing more extreme symptoms.
The one category of people who didn’t see a sudden jump in heat related problems were folks like construction workers - but those are the people who work outside in the heat as a matter of course, they have experience dealing with it, and during that sort of heat they were supplied extra water and more frequent breaks. There was some concern about the firemen, too - even in a normal summer some of them get sick from overheating - but there didn’t seem to be a sharp jump in them having problems, either.
Yes, some of the elderly deaths are “speeded up”. Again, people live longer with chronic illness in part because we have cooling systems that prevents them suffering heat stress. If you are dependent on A/C to maintain a certain level of health and you lose the A/C during a heat wave you are in big, big trouble. And this doesn’t have to be a terribly high rise in temperature. My mother is one of these folks - she really can’t tolerate anything over 80 for very long (a couple hours at most - certainly a whole day of it would be bad for her). If she didn’t have A/C there’s a good chance she wouldn’t have survived this long.
And it’s a very real concern for her right now - Mom and Dad live in Detroit and thus were caught by the Big Blackout of '03. Their solution was to get in the car and drive to a hotel outside the affected area.
You guys are in total agreement, yes?
Yes.
I am very very curious about the quote provided by Ponster
Is this true? Sure feels like a real Cecil question to me.
Cartooniverse
I’m surprised that more Aussies haven’t replied to this thread, but oh well.
I’ve through weather where the heat would stay above 40C(no idea wat that is in F) for days, and even then the respite was only about 37C.
You do get used to it, though there are some basic precautions to be taken. Most of them have already been mentioned, but the major one (IMHO) has barely been touched. Clothing.
Recommended Clothing:
Men : Shorts, Singlet. End of List. If you have to go out, where a pair of thongs (flip-flops, for the rest of you) so your feet dont get hot. Otherwise bare-feet’ll do.
Women : Shorts, light T-Shirt, only for modesty’s sake. same deal with the footwear.
Small children : nappies.
If its hotter inside than it is outside, then go outside. Make sure you have ample shade, then lie down and dont do anything much at all, except maybe get up for more water.
If you’re not under any water restrictions, use the resource! Water fights are great fun, as well as significantly cooling you down.
Btw, r_k, re: “Whats all the sympathy for?”
Its for the dead ppl. Bit o’ respect.
Yes, it is true, it’s simple thermodynamics. For example if leave your fridge door open in a room, the room will necessarily heat up as the fridge will be generating more heat than ‘cold’.
I was speaking to the Strine barmaid at my local pub and she said that though it’s hotter in Oz, she said she said that the heat here (South-East England) was much more difficult to cope with.
Fair enough. I havent been overseas (yet) so I can’t argue.
I’d be interested as to what, specifically, that meant though. AFAIK, there’s heat, and there’s humidity.
I think it would be more to do with the area’s ability to cope with the heat, rather than the heat itself.
This, however, is just speculation now, so don’t quote me.