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Comment by princeb | Hacker News Reader

i probably have a comment somewhere recently, but singapore is already in WBT >35 conditions in the day. it eases to around 30 at night or when rain falls.

as long as power is running, it's actually fine in this country, but that's because we've designed our living space around the heat. it is entirely possible to never be exposed to the sun in a normal day in the life of a working resident here if you stay in the right neighbourhood, and this includes the daily commute, hobbies, physical activity, going out for drinks etc.

more and more of the country is being built underground and more and more of our air is becoming conditioned. this is the arcology of the future and it is somewhat pleasant.

edit: actually i think our infrastructure was built around protecting us from the harsh and unpredictable tropical thunderstorms and the protection from heat turned out to be a nice bonus.

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Having lived in Singapore for five years (2012-2017) (and worked out in the field for about 50% of that time) I can say that Singapore is one of the milder places to live. It never ever gets particularly hot (I genuinely can't recall a 100+ degree day in the entire time I was there), and the humidity, while, "sticky" is never really extreme. The thing that gets to you is that the climate never seems to change (with the exception of a lot of rain) - it's always pretty humid and in the high 70s/low 80s, 24x7x365.

Once you acclimate to it though - it's fine - I used to do a 5 mile run every day from Anson Road/GardensByTheBay/MBS - wasn't an issue.

I worked in Dubai for about 6 months, and there were days there that I honestly thought I might die if I didn't get somewhere cool. And it wasn't the days that were 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 Celsius) (though those were intense) - but the 100-105 degrees at super high humidity that would knock you on your back. Your entire body would be instantly bathed in sweat and it wouldn't help.

I was fine without Air Conditioning in Singapore - would sometimes turn mine off and just open the windows, but I can imagine anyone doing that in Dubai during the hot season.

> I can say that Singapore is one of the milder places to live. It never ever gets particularly hot

Singapore is almost exactly on the equator. UV readings get up to 11 each day (extreme), whereas the most I ever saw in say SF was 5.

Your experience is one experience, mine is that it's a sauna every day of the year. I've experienced extremely hot days in terms of subjective experience of WBT as explained in article. My gf, a local here, also decries the heat. I personally cannot go running before 5:30pm. I got a major sunburn on my back at 5:30pm the time I tried running shirtless at east coast park. Granted, I am pale.

But what are you comparing it to? Anywhere tropical (or even mediterranean) is going to seem hot compared to SF. Not being able to run until the evening and getting sunburn at 5.30pm are standard in a mediterranean summer too

As a fellow Singapore resident, it's undoubtedly hot. The parent's point was that there are places like the Gulf that are unquestionably hotter.

I once visited Kuwait in August, and it was 52 degrees in the shade with near-100% humidity. I genuinely do not understand how some people survive there today without aircon, much less how they will do so if temps go up a few more degrees.

But it is also close to the ocean which is usually much more livable than anywhere inland in Malaysia or Indonesia.

" the most I ever saw in say SF was 5."

Really? London is 6 today, was 7 last week and 8 earlier this year.

I do also concur with the GP that Singapore is relatively mild as far as equatorial/tropical climates go. India, the Middle East, the Philippines and even Australia are sometimes much more oppressive.

The hottest day ever recorded in Singapore was 37c, whereas London is 38c and SF is apparently 41c. Of course, Singapore is more humid (and thus higher WBT) - but it's also much more consistent. In theory that would make it easier to acclimate..... but then Singaporeans seem to run their AC set to freezing.

It is unintuitive, but equatorial locations are usually stable and relatively moderate. They will tend to be uncomfortably warm year round, but never experience the temperature swings of locations much further north or south.

https://images.app.goo.gl/P4YtYRLvT5XVcn168

Look at this map of max temperatures and note that the equator runs through a band of relatively low max temperatures: Indonesia, northern South America, and the more southern part of Africa show bands of conspicuous coolness. The hottest max temperatures are in places like southern North America, India, Northern Africa, and Australia; locations that are in fact very far away from the equator.

The max temperatures of a place is caused by many things, such as proximity to water and local wind currents, but one driving reason is relatively simple: because of the tilt of the earth, every day on the equator is 12 hours. North or south of the equator, on the summer solstice, you can get 15 hour days, depending on latitude. The summer is a period of continuously intense solar heating. Again, there are other factors, but the sun is the driving force.

San Francisco is slated to just about hit 10 today.

Living in both San Diego and now Denver, they hit 11 quite regularly.

Singapore is also really cloudy. Definitely not "Sauna" like Dubai (or Washington DC on a bad day) - but non-stop "Sticky". I was always wet, but would work outdoors for 4-6 hours/day doing field survey work across the entire island.

In the time I spent in Dubai (about six months) in comparison, I had to seek shelter from the heat/sun a half-dozen times, and came close to heat-stroking a bunch of times. That was after 4+ years in Singapore.

I drank a lot of water in Singapore - but never, in a million years would I have gone on a trek like MacRitchie reservoir in Dubai - and in Singapore I took my 65 year old mother through the entire loop.

Just completely different environments - Singapore is not the type of environment being discussed in the original article.

https://data.gov.sg/dataset/wet-bulb-temperature-hourly?view...

The Changi airport weather station does not have any recordings of a 35C wet bulb temperature. And this paper suggests that it is a very uncommon occurrence as yet. What source are you using?

https://www.wbgt.sg/allstations

That is wet bulb globe temperature, not wet bulb temp. WBGT is calculated by adding together weighted WBT, globe temp and dry bulb temp.

See: https://www.instrumentchoice.com.au/news/wet-bulb-temperatur...

Yes sorry I shouldn’t be conflating two different concepts. Wbt >35 is the fatal temperature. Wbgt black (>31-32 depending on source) is where physical activity is dangerous.

Yes, I sometimes feel like I'm at death's door when jogging outdoors. Myself and some Westerners I know haven't "adapted", even after years being here. The strategy is just always have ice water in hand if outdoors for prolonged time. I sometimes get laughed at for not adjusting to the heat, but I think it's just too much for some genetic lineages from outside tropics.

Unfortunately a large percentage of folks in HDB flats don't have AC, so I do fear for many citizens in Singapore. With global warming trends it should simply be a free or heavily subsidized utility here.

I've been thinking about this, and it's seeming like childhood exposure to prolonged heat and humidity may be what gives you the ability to handle it as an adult.

It's just an anecdote, of course, but there are notable examples of people i think should be from genetic backgrounds that could handle the heat that can't, and vice versa.

Without a reference handy to back this statement up I think there may indeed be epigenetic changes. Perhaps even more pronounced would be the experience of the mother in hotter environments during pregnancy.

After a car accident, I had to depend on public transport in the boondocks where my job required shuttling from site to site in very humid hot tropical weather. I thought I was going to die that first week.

One of the locals finally told me I couldnt just walk out of airconditioned low humidity offices into the street and roam around, without giving my body 10-15 minutes to recalibrate. So before setting out from air conditioned buildings, I would stand outside in the shade for a bit and then head out. And that made a big difference. I started sweating less and didnt feel humidity as much.

I used to work construction and when I was a teenager I worked on farms growing up in the rural South.

If you work outside all day you adapt very quickly to it. During the adjustment period you are chugging water all the time but you eventually adjust. It's a circulation adaptation that's been observed with special forces recruits.

> If you work outside all day you adapt very quickly to it.

Sort of yes, sort of no. In some industries, those who do hard labour in heat have a terrible death rate from kidney disease. There is a lot in the news about this in relation to sugarcane workers. Eg: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/14/kidney-disease...

When you use AC during nighttime you never get adapted to the heat. Try slowly phasing it out.

That's contradictory to leading sleep scientists like Matthew Walker, Peter Attia, etc. which is clear about need for chilly environment for sleep quality, eg < 21C. Granted, sleep science isn't oriented towards the genetics of the tropics yet, but there's plenty of evidence about temperature and sleep quality for more northern genetics anyway.

I agree with the parent. Killing the AC for weeks on end really helped me acclimate to the local temperature.

I'm not saying it resulted in quality sleep (as a Canadian - I set the thermostat to 13 degrees in the winter when sleeping, and my ideal temperature in the summer is about 18 degrees) - but you get used to the outdoor climate reasonably quickly (in my case, about 4-6 months).

Is 18 degrees assuming a fairly warm duvet covers / blankets? When I was staying hostels the dorms would sometimes be air conditioned and only a sheet would be provided for cover, and I struggled to sleep in anything colder than 21, and I'd have had it up to 22-24 if I could.

Sort of - now that I live in Michigan, and re-acclimated to a northern climate, at 21 I have to sleep on top of blankets or I overheat (though, I will find that after a few hours, my body cools down while sleeping and I may pull a blanket overtop me). 18 + a normal duvet is perfection. Cool enough for blankets, but not so cold that I feel uncomfortable.

This is mostly a meditation on the fact that I used to be able to sleep in temperatures of 26-27 in Singapore. The human body (at least this one) can definitely acclimate to local environments given some time and exposure.

Of course - no acclimating whatsoever will help you if the wetbulb temperature gets up to 35. You are just dead unless you can find some active cooling at that point fairly quickly.

I don't think it is contradictory - that is the point of adaptation that you expose yourself to something that is not optimal and your body learns to handle it. Think of it as artificially changing the range of conditions needed for good sleep quality by training.

Weird. I slept just fine in 27-28 for years. Unless I had a cover anything cooler than that was uncomfortable.

Stop it with the genetics talk, unless you want to cite some research.

https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

I'm in Denmark, when it gets 26 degrees here I drench my shirts in ice water and put in the freezer for a bit and then put on to cool down. I'm guessing, given what a wimp I am about the temperature, a few more degrees and I'm one of the first to die.

Always look on the bright side of death.

I'm thinking you must be Danish because of the Monty Python joke - Danes love that damn movie.

Unfortunately it looks like someone who didn't get it downvoted you. Welcome to HN!

I've lived in Australia and Norway. Your body adapts to ongoing temperatures. In Norway you're taking off your jumper as heads into double digits entering spring time. In Australian summer your putting on a jumper at 22 if there's a cold summer night.

We've literally be talking to Norwegian family about their nice 22 degree day at the beach while I was loading the fire place, they asked me the temperature, checked and was 22 also, though would have dropped later at night.

I find over 35 gets tough to do ongoing outdoor work. An hour or 2 then you need an hour or 2 to cool down. Hitting, 40c this is getting too hot.

Yeah, people don't understand that the human body is remarkably adaptable. Just need to stay in a place for a while (a few weeks to months). I've cycled to school ~10 kms everyday in 35-40° as a kid, came home to cool down instantly under a ceiling fan. Now in my current city I find 27+ too hot.

Big factor is body fat, when I was very skinny I could take higher temperatures than 40pounds later. It made basically 5 celsius degrees difference of "quite nice and warm" vs "too hot to operate" temperature.

Lack of sun exposure can cause hypovitaminosis D, which is a known risk factor for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. It also impacts nitric oxide production which is a factor in cardiovascular system health. Supplements can mitigate the problems to an extent but are inferior to natural sun exposure.

And before anyone brings up skin cancer, there is no reliable evidence that brief daily sun exposure increases all cause mortality.

> Supplements can mitigate the problems to an extent but are inferior to natural sun exposure.

Inferior how?

Supplements for fat soluble nutrients like vitamin D generally have poor bioavailability unless used with specialized emulsifiers for insoluble compounds that aren't widely used [1]. The body has a hard time buffering and storing the excess, which it can't filter out through the kidneys.

It's like fast acting insulin versus insulin produced by a functioning pancreas - it's going to keep someone alive but it's not ideal for the body long term.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6631968/

> Supplements can mitigate the problems to an extent but are inferior to natural sun exposure.

I've never heard of such a claim, and that seems unintuitive. Why would that be? Do you have a source you could direct me to to learn more about this?

I have heard that sunlight also causes the skin to produce nitric oxide, which supposedly has all kinds of benefits.

I am not claiming this and don't have a reliable source to point to.

My understanding is that it’s extremely hard to get large scale controlled studies on sun exposure vs vitimin d supplementation, so there is lots of uncertainty still on relative efficacy. I wouldn’t say certainly that it’s inferior to sun exposure, but sun exposure can clearly have many more effects than just stimulating production of vitimin d that could then appear to correlate with D serum levels.

Some more reading specifically on vitimin D:

https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-health%20Professi...

Can't find it now, but this is probably based on a study/studies that I've seen that showed that lack of vitamin D is correlated with bad things, but supplementation doesn't fix the bad things nearly as much as you would expect. So, the idea some people have is that vitamin D is merely a correlate of something else that sun exposure does. I call it "sun magic" :)

...sometimes I secretly wonder if sunscreen (over-)use in America would one day be found to be the cause of rise in depression and other things like that over the last few decades, kinda like lead pipes of old. I don't think it's likely but it would be kinda funny.

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