It's best not to assume what you read on the internet is always true. Some people post things that turn out to be utter nonsense. Easily checkable nonsense to boot.
I really hate it because I know it will only make things worse long term but my North European country is rapidly installing AC everywhere now thanks to increasing heatwaves.
> While some heat-humidity impacts can be avoided through acclimation and behavioral adaptation (12), there exists an upper limit for survivability under sustained exposure, even with idealized conditions of perfect health, total inactivity, full shade, absence of clothing, and unlimited drinking water (9, 10). A normal internal human body temperature of 36.8° ± 0.5°C requires skin temperatures of around 35°C to maintain a gradient directing heat outward from the core (10, 13). Once the air (dry-bulb) temperature (T) rises above this threshold, metabolic heat can only be shed via sweat-based latent cooling, and at TW exceeding about 35°C, this cooling mechanism loses its effectiveness altogether. Because the ideal physiological and behavioral assumptions are almost never met, severe mortality and morbidity impacts typically occur at much lower values—for example, regions affected by the deadly 2003 European and 2010 Russian heat waves experienced TW values no greater than 28°C (fig. S1). In the literature to date, there have been no observational reports of TW exceeding 35°C and few reports exceeding 33°C (9, 11, 14, 15). The awareness of a physiological limit has prompted modeling studies to ask how soon it may be crossed. Results suggest that, under the business-as-usual RCP8.5 emissions scenario, TW could regularly exceed 35°C in parts of South Asia and the Middle East by the third quarter of the 21st century (14–16).
I can’t even imagine how hot it would have felt at 95° F or higher with the same humidity—I wouldn’t be surprised if it was deadly.
From https://www.houstontx.gov/health/Epidemiology/e-heat-illness....:
> In the summer of 2000, 26 deaths involving Houston residents were reported. In 2001, 13 deaths were due to heat.
From https://environmenttexas.org/news/txe/global-warming-increas...:
> Thursday, September 6, 2007, HOUSTON – The death toll from extreme heat in Houston each summer will increase from about 24 to nearly 32, resulting in 192 additional heat-related deaths by mid-century
> > Thursday, September 6, 2007, HOUSTON – The death toll from extreme heat in Houston each summer will increase from about 24 to nearly 32
The actual number of heat deaths in Houston and Harris County in 2018 was 15; Houston itself sees 4–6 per year. Maybe air conditioning is more common a decade later than was originally predicted, or perhaps medical intervention arrives more quickly or is more effective.
Sources: https://nihhis.cpo.noaa.gov/Urban-Heat-Island-Mapping/Campai... and https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in-depth/20...
The reason why I think this distinction is important is because there is some level of heat + humidity where it really does mean death to anyone in some short amount of time.
But I guess you're right -- I've had friends heat stroke after 2-3 hrs of unshaded exposure when it hits ~92+ i.e. soccer pickup games. Shade will carry you a long way, even without AC though -- I have extended family in La Guajira that still lives like this.
> But I guess you're right -- I've had friends heat stroke after 2-3 hrs of unshaded exposure when it hits ~92+ i.e. soccer pickup games. Shade will carry you a long way, even without AC though -- I have extended family in La Guajira that still lives like this.
Oof...yep, same experience, especially when the sun isn't occluded by clouds. It's gnarly.
You soft western babies with your dry saunas. Over there the banya is kept at 110% humidity, and old men beat you with sticks the whole time.
I’m sure there are many other places as well.
> Wet bulb thermometer readings are significantly lower than the more familiar dry bulb readings, which do not take humidity into account. Researchers say that at a wet bulb reading of 35C, the body can no longer cool itself by sweating and such a temperature can be fatal in a few hours, even to the fittest people.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...
You can convert with a psychrometric chart [1] or with a calculator [2]. At sea level, 35 C dry bulb, 80% humidity is about 32 C wet bulb. Dangerously hot, yes, but it won't kill you in 15 minutes.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Psychrom...