New study lays out hidden backstory behind deadly Pacific Northwest heat wave | Hacker News Reader

New study lays out hidden backstory behind deadly Pacific Northwest heat wave

news.uchicago.edu

59 pointsrntn23 comments

This was a time me and my partner spent far too much effort building contraptions to try and stay cool. Sucking colder air from the apartment hallways, converting a single-hose portable A/C into a dual, and others.

But an especially effective project was an experiment to determine exactly what window covering would reduce heating from direct sunlight the most. We could only cover the inside of windows, and I had assumed aluminum foil would work best, but wasn’t sure.

I set up a test of various materials and stuck them to my window with a thermoprobe and some insulation. I tested printer paper, various foils, and plastics.

Plain old white printer ended up performing the best, and aluminum foil being significantly worse. Best part about paper was it still let a lot of visible light in, while reflecting IR.

Hope this helps someone a summer heats up again!

>> converting a single-hose portable A/C into a dual

Could you expand on that ? Did you manage to get an improvement of efficiency ? What model of A/C were you using ? Thanks

Many people have tried, https://www.google.com/search?q=convert+1-hose+to+2-hose+ac

It probably helps quite a bit, especially when a lot hotter outside than in. (But that's often not the case where I live south of Seattle.) But when I move to IL, I'm thinking mini-split is much easier solution for 1-2 room apt.

As someone who also did the dual-hose conversion.

For some background, you probably know that the AC works by sucking in air and then outputting one stream that's hotter and one stream that's colder. The cold air is blown into the room and the hot air is ventilated out the hose. The problem now is, that the hot air you blow out of the room creates a vacuum and in turn sucks in hot air from the outside. So you constantly take some of the nice cool air of your room and heat it up and blow it out of the building. The dual hose setup instead takes air from outside for the heating up part.

The dual-hose setup should go in tandem with a well isolated window insert. For my mod, I simply taped a cardboard box to the inlet side of the AC unit and created a second opening into the polycarbonate plate covering the window opening.

> Did you manage to get an improvement of efficiency?

Yes, definately. I didn't do any scientific measurement, but after the mod, my workspace did get a lot cooler than before.

> What model of A/C were you using ? De Longhi Pinguino PAC N81

not op but was in same situation for few years as in my region A/C is somehow luxury and a lot of landlords don't mount them.

the issue with portable A/C is that most of the units needs to stay inside apartment, the cooling happens by compression/decompression of coolant, which produces heat and cold. so the A/C unit is producing additional heat that it needs to chill, which makes it inefficient. also these units are loud as fuck, most of them above 65dB.

so if you are in need, look for units that have the ability to channel cold air to the house from outside. otherwise you should always avoid portable A/C as it is really inefficient.

here's better explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-mBeYC2KGc

During the heatwave I set up an evaporative cooling system by hanging wet sheets in front of open windows on one side of the house.

I had a cool draft running through the house, and out open windows on the other side.

During the worst part of the heatwave I was re-soaking the sheets every 15 minutes, which was a hassle, but otherwise it worked well, I was able to bring the room temperature down by about 10°c.

I have 3 large skylights which cause the rooms they are in to get very warm in the evening when it’s sunny. I used the Gila window film that is designed to block heat and UV but allow light through. Though somewhat expensive at around $50/roll to cover 2 skylights, it works extremely well and I wish I had used the film when I first moved in. A huge difference in temperature though I don’t have the empirical numbers. The film is adhesive and requires you to do some acrobatics to apply upside down in a skylight but very doable with a helper. It should be removable with a hair dryer.

Temps peaked around 117 degrees where I lived[0]. There were at least 3 or 4 days in a row where temps remained over 100. For context, temperatures would normally be somewhere between low 70s to mid 80s. Air conditioning isn't common in the PNW, and we had none at first. I managed to get a portable AC that was able to keep temps below 100 in our home office where my family slept for a few days. It kept tripping our circuit breaker, but it provided enough shelter that my family was able to get by. I had a six month old baby, and we literally had to flee our home the day temps got to 117 outside (with indoor temps going well past 120 upstairs for us). Hotels were of course completely booked all the way until you got to Yakima. I took off from work and we, like many others, drove to a large shopping mall and literally waited out the day there. When we got back home, there were things that had clearly been affected by the heat. I remember seeing how a bottle of wood glue had changed color to a dark brown.

[0]: https://komonews.com/news/local/issaquah-highlands-reach-sco...

It was brutal. That town where the NA temp. record was tied would burn down the next day.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lytton_wildfire

It was. We blocked off all the windows in our apartment (outside and inside) with old bed sheets and towels. We camped out in our living room with our A/C unit, keeping the "cool" air localized by blocking off the rest of the apartment with bed sheets and towels.

Even with the A/C unit (rated for about 465 sq ft) full tilt 24/7, our living room never dipped below 85 F. The rest of our apartment was well over 95.

Our poor cat was absolutely lethargic. We wiped her down with a wet washcloth every few hours, which she clearly appreciated. I think the A/C unit was a bit loud for her, though, because the dumb thing kept trying to sneak back to her favorite spots which were outside of the living room (and therefore over 100 F).

I learned this in LV. You can cool yourself by holding something cold over central circulatory places on your body. i.e. the inside of your elbow ("the ditch"), back of your knees, or nape of your neck. I would use very a chilled/ice cold stainless steel water bottle. Similarly, in cold you can stay (significantly, in my experience) warmer by holding the bottom of your feet and/or your hands together flattest/largest part to flattest/largest part.

Edit-Also, you should have covered every bit of the inside of the window with aluminum foil. Flat up against the pane of the glass. Then have towels/blinds on the other side.

Towels/blinds outside the window? I live on the top floor of an apartment building. if you'd like to volunteer to hang those up, I won't stop you.

(Those sound like good suggestions, in all seriousness.)

Inside, obviously. The point is the foil reflects the heat back out the window away from the building. Unfortunately it’s just going to look a little trashy but anything between the foil and outside is going to get baked.

> We blocked off all the windows in our apartment (outside and inside) with old bed sheets and towels

doesnt that mean your windows are leaking like sieves? to the point a ~10000 BTU unit couldnt keep up with one room? :o or was it one of those portable exhaust only ACs sucking cold air out of the apartment creating a negative pressure?

It's got two hoses, one for intake and the other for exhaust. But yeah, the apartment had terrible drafts. And also would turn into an oven. Perks of a concrete apartment, I guess? :)

I have reoccurring nightmares about this town and what happened there. It’s like something out of a science fiction novel.

This article was written by by someone who doesn’t quite get it (anticyclone in quotes? Even my iPhone knows that word). It’s cool that an undergrad is lead author, though.

But the underlying article in GRL seems interesting:

> From late June to early July 2021, an unprecedented heat wave enveloped the Pacific Northwest, causing over 1,000 deaths. We investigate the meteorological condition and physical processes responsible for this event. Persistent meandering of the upper-level jet stream (blocking anticyclone) established a warm, stagnant column of air over the Pacific Northwest, which suppressed convection and trapped heat near the surface. Somewhat counterintuitively, the blocking anticyclone itself grew out of a cyclone that developed upstream (Gulf of Alaska) a few days prior: the heat released during the formation of clouds in this storm played an essential role in strengthening the blocking anticyclone downstream, and the subsequent heat wave. To the extent that the condensation of moisture enhances blocking anticyclones in summer, we can expect them and associated heat waves to intensify as the climate warms and the atmosphere contains more water vapor.

This was such an unusual event. I remember being amazed that it was nearly 40F hotter in Seattle than in Oakland.

The most recent Bay Area heat wave a few weeks ago was similar - it was 15F hotter in San Francisco than it was at the beach in Orange County.

It's almost like there are bubbles of heat that hit a particular section of the coast.

It was a pretty odd experience sitting comfortably in the Mojave Desert while my relatives in the PNW were complaining about the unbearable heat.

How much power would it take to heat up surface ocean water enough to artificially precipitate this kind of extreme weather event?

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