Vietnam records highest ever temperature of 44.1C | Hacker News Reader

Vietnam records highest ever temperature of 44.1C

theguardian.com

73 pointsPaulHoule83 comments

Nearly 112 Fahrenheit. It gets that hot sometimes in Fresno, California and then they open cooling stations so homeless people and other poor people don't die and you could take the bus for free if you were heading to a cooling station.

I never went to one. I stuck to shady microclimates and added Gatorade to my diet on such days.

If you are in that kind of heat, you need not just fluid but also electrolytes.

Also: Let me plug passive solar design. Even when it's hot like that outside, it doesn't have to be that hot indoors.

You just have to design it better.

Technology ~Connection~ Ingredients is a fantastic YouTube channel that shows how to build all sorts of useful things. Their latest video is on passive cooling and very impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNs_kNilSjk

Warning: the “senior-engineer; knows how to make stuff” energy from that channel is off the charts. Enough to warn people on HN.

To avoid confusion, that's Tech Ingredients, not Technology Connection(s);

He values his privacy - I believe he's an MD. The engineering is just a hobby.

Vietnam is wildly humid tho. 112F in Fresno would feel like about 90F in Ho Chi Minh

The National Weather Service actually provides a handy calculator https://www.weather.gov/epz/wxcalc_heatindex

If you're looking for a much cheaper alternative to gatorade, look up the "snake juice" recipe that people use for extended fasts - the kind that are weeks long. It covers all the major electrolytes. All the ingredients are available on Amazon and you can combine it with whatever flavoring you want but I just make it dilute enough to make very lightly salty water.

I'd never heard of this but searching Reddit brought me to this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/fasting_in_a_nutshell/...

(scroll down to 'example recipe')

44C can be fatal at even 10% humidity[0]. Hanoi never sees humidity below 78% (in January[1]), so unless I am confused about Wet Bulb Temperatures, anything above 30C will see otherwise healthy individuals drop dead in the street after six hours outside[2]. 44C is utterly horrifying to contemplate.

0. https://arielschecklist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/CHART...

1. https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/vietnam/hanoi

2. https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2621/...

I’m not sure I understand the chart in [0]. Isn’t wet bulb temperature supposed to be the same as air temperature when relative humidity hits 100%? If so, why does that chart show wet bulb temperatures above air temperature at humidities above 50%?

I'm sorry, that chart indicates Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, which also accounts for "solar load" or, per wikipedia[0] "solar radiation," ie the heat of the sun bearing down, as well.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_globe_temperaturealc

I googled for "wet bulb calculator" and it lists 44C 10% humidity as 21C wet-bulb, which is certainly not deadly for healthy people with access to water and shade. 78% relative humidity though is 40C which is unfathomably hot.

I should point out that relative humidity usually goes down when temperatures go up (because the absolute humidity rises rather slowly), so hopefully it was lower than 78% humidity.

[edit]

Chart from parent post is not WBT but WBGT. See e.g. https://axongroup.com/en/blog/what-wet-bulb-temperature for an actual wet-bulb temperature chart.

Keep in mind, RH drops as temperature rises. Experienced the same in Florida. Every once in a while you'd get a super hot day, but the humidity would read lower than usual.

The humidity at 44C was probably in the 40s.

Not that any of this is good news, just trying to clarify it wasn't 44C at 78% RH. That would be insanely deadly.

I don’t know why relative humidity is used for laymen. I remember when I learned the Dew Point is what you can use to gauge what it feels like. I grew up in the South and later in life moved to the northwest and people would say it was humid sometimes in the summer and could never understand why they thought that. They’re just looking at the relative humidity on the weather app or whatever. Whatever the RH is if the dew point is 70°+ it’s gonna feel way hotter.

Agreed, dew-point is so much better than RH. Wet bulb is a good number too.

I came to the exact same conclusion for the exact same reasons. RH is terrible at telling you much of anything due to the nature of what it's actually measuring.

90 degrees at 60% RH is much 'muggier' than 60 degrees at 75% RH.

Laos and Thailand have also set all-time records during this heat wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Asia_heat_wave

See you this time next year for 2024_Asia_heat_wave

Please keep in mind humans have only been recording temps since like the 1700s and some sources start their data in 1910 which is when such recordings were finally standardized.

https://qz.com/1055629/why-does-all-our-climate-data-start-i...

https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/weather-records-when-be...

So if you are imagining "Wow, the hottest it's been in thousands of years", no. Our records don't go back that far.

We don't really know what this all means nor where it's going.

We know perfectly well what this all means and where it's going.

No we don't. As one of my professors said: We're like flees on the butt of a dog trying to figure out which way the dog is going.

We are seeing new species emerge.

We are seeing lions eat seafood when that wasn't previously the norm.

We are seeing things no one predicted.

To be clear, I'm not saying "Don't worry! Be happy!" I'm saying we routinely talk like we know things with a certainty that doesn't actually exist.

I think our written history would mention it getting so hot that tens of thousands died, temperature records or not. Before AC, +44C would slay

Please see the timeline of Earth's average temperature for the past 20,000 years: https://xkcd.com/1732/

Those temps are not actually based on human records. They are based on models and inference and we sometimes realize at some point that a thing contained some error or erroneous assumption.

I stand by my statement.

I think your point is a good one, there's some arrogance in assuming our short observations can be extrapolated forward, yet pointing this out is frowned upon.

My guess is people fear inaction on climate change, so they are comfortable with working on incomplete information, and willing to pretend (consciously or not) that climate is well understood.

I've lived without a car in the US for a lot of years. I'm a few classes short of a BS in Environmental Studies, intended as preparation for a Masters in Planning.

I do plenty of research and I produce resources for fostering constructive change which mostly don't have traction.

It seems like big feels in online forums is the extent of it for too many people.

It's a bit much to dismiss all of our best analysis of our best data as "big feels"

I walk the walk. Other people buy electric cars to green wash their car-centric lifestyle and then hand wring about how we are doomed and all ye who enter here give up hope.

And that analysis says the part we most fear is the man-made part of the equation.

If it's man-made, it can be man unmade, and never mind how certain most people are that getting people to change is a lost cause.

If the data is of sufficiently low quality (and long term temperature data is), then it doesn't matter if it's the best analysis of the best possible. It's still going to generate unreliable conclusions.

You've been around here long enough that you should know better. Kudos for even trying, and I hope you keep on, but also don't let it get you down. Even if you agree with 99% of a cult, it's that 1% of error checking that gets you excommunicated, at best.

I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here. I've made the exact same point previously on HN and it got a few upvotes and zero argument.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27658488

HN is a big forum with around 5 million unique visitors per month last I heard a figure from a reliable source. It's probably more these days.

Who sees it first, how they react, time of day -- heck if I know why I can say the exact same thing on HN at different times and get wildly different reactions, but I can and I do.

My apologies, I must have mistaken you for someone else.

It's not just extrapolation. It's also prediction based on well-understood chemical/physical processes in the atmosphere and glaciers and oceans.

They aren't entirely based on models and inference. There is physical evidence mixed in there as well.

The error bar is certainly larger, but the trend lines are very clear.

They are also averages, not highs and lows.

But I'm going to stop replying because whatever people are reacting to here it has nothing to do with scientific accuracy nor the accuracy of my statements.

The outside chance that maybe there was an afternoon once was hotter than the absurd heights we are reaching seems irrelevant.

The odds of there being such years keeps shrinking, and is already below there being a one in a million chance of there ever having had been such an exceptional year in the past 10k years. The truth you cling to is on a statistically decreasing time line, as the average keeps riding.

Whether a rare exceptional happened or not seems entirely beside the point. And far worse is looming with very high chance.

We get it, we all have our rituals when facing our mortality. Some pray, some weep, some just give up. But this ritual pseudo scientific chanting in the face of catastrophe is not only wrong, its unnecessary. Our children know nothing different. For them the world they will inherit will always have been that way. The heat belt refugees will always have migrated north. And for the older generations its barely relevant, except to calm our nerves.

Nobody blames anyone for this mess. This is how young species goes. This is why the galaxy is empty. We walk into the filter and are gone. Nothing to be afraid of. Acceptance is peace.

I'm not afraid of death. I live with a genetic disorder. I'm a former military wife.

I'm also an environmental studies major.

Since this is your field of study, you probably want to provide some backup scientific references beyond “my professor said.”

I provided links in my very first comment backing up my factually correct statement.

No, you provided nothing of merit to back up your conclusion which is that predictions can’t be made due to lack of data and nature is too unpredictable so everyone move along. Those pop science articles referencing a tweet isn’t enough for that claim.

It's climate ACCELERATED change that is the problem.

The earth has undergone many climate changes over time. The ice-age 10,000 years ago for example. The change is slow. Plants and animals have time to adjust to changes. But current global warming appears to be occuring at a rapid rate.

Volcanic eruptions expelling massive amounts of smoke and ash and huge meteorites hitting the earth have also triggered rapid climate changes.

Meanwhile, here in India, for the first time in the living memory of every single person I know, including my 78 year old dad, we had 25C daytime temperature in Delhi...in May.

The weather has been bizarre as hell. It was so unusually hot in February that the prime minister had to call an urgent meeting to discuss potential damage to crops from the excessive heat.

Then it suddenly cooled down again and has been unseasonably pleasant.

Wait, 25C is "unseasonably pleasant" for May? I've been spoiled by a mild clime for too long...

Routine daytime temperatures in May easily hit 45C.

In fact, the heat is coming back now and it's projected to hit 43C next week :)

They also had unusually high temperatures in April in my native Russian town. In 2022, there was snow in April. In 2023, temperature reached 17C. On May 1, it was 28C. It then suddenly cooled down, too.

In Spain, every month this year has been below average in terms of rain fall. People are saying it's getting hotter and drier like a desert, and that the country is becoming part of Africa.

Yes, the part of North India where I live it's raining and the summer is cool.

I wonder where the heatwaves got shipped or is europe also experiencing this cool summer phenomenon?

Why climate is becoming milder in North India?

Mild this year. Last year was absolutely brutal. The heat wave started all the way back in March and didn’t abate until August.

Just wildly unpredictable.

> Vietnam’s record was measured indoors at Hoi Xuan station

Is it usual to take such measurements indoors?

It's a public place full of people, so why not.

I wonder how close that is to a max wet bulb temp that person can tolerate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

It's a meaningful measurement of how pleasant it is to work in that building, but it's a bit of a silly detail to sneak in to an article that's primarily about climate change, because things like the building construction, the density, the activities, etc. all impact the temperature far more. How far is this off of normal temperatures? What's the outside temperature? Was the previous record also taken inside? Have to go look outside the article for all of that, and yet it's the headline.

edit: sometimes climate science journalism feels like an exercise in trying to hand strawman arguments to deniers, which doesn't help anyone.

Some might label you a denier for questioning the conditions of this measurement at all (or more charitably a "skeptic", which is almost as bad nowadays). I'd wager that many people publicly labeled as deniers are simply guilty of not panicking hard enough.

Cherry-picked measurements and pessimistic models have long been standard in climate science, so one should take every headline with a grain of salt. That doesn't mean denying that anthropogenic climate change is real, but as with any contentious issue, after being viciously attacked once or twice for pointing that out, I've learned to shut my mouth on most forums.

The sea surface temperature gives a good indicator of wet bulb temperature. Right now that shows as about 30 degrees.

And from the linked Wikipedia article "theoretical limit to human survival for more than a few hours in the shade, even with unlimited water, is a wet-bulb temperature of 35 °C (95 °F)"

OK, that's not comforting at all

Seems doubtful. Although 44.2C was apparently recorded a day later, in another location[0]

[0]https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1655247154380783617

Luckily, high temperatures correlate very highly with high solar power availability.

They should open some warehouses with great insulation and some solar panels and AC. Maybe some stores too. :p

I did some math once and it might be possible, given some fancy material science, to create a suit with its own AC that’s powered by a 5x2ft foldable solar panel.

The only issue is that this is entirely theoretical and no one makes a sufficiently small AC. I think you only needed about half a BTU or so

If it weren’t for cultural issues it would be more popular and cheaper to simply wear a climate controlled suit rather than have AC. There are also some comfort issues that would need to be resolved I suppose.

(For the curious the actual AC portion, fan and coolant would be in a backpack would be in a backpack like device)

> If it weren’t for cultural issues it would be more popular and cheaper to simply wear a climate controlled suit rather than have AC. There are also some comfort issues that would need to be resolved I suppose.

Yay! Now we need space suits to survive on our own planet. Go Humanity!

> Now we need space suits to survive on our own planet.

Well, coats kind of already were...

One would die without 'space suit' outdoors in Montreal in January. That was the case before industrialization as well.

Talk about false analogies. The "space suit" you needed to survive outside in Montreal in January can be basically home-made from cheap, abundant material. Our ancestors figured that out with no tech. In comparison, if it's too hot, only expensive technology can save you, which is out of reach of billions of poor people.

Our ancestor figured out air climatisation as well https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180926-an-ancient-engin...

Point is that way more people die from cold than from heat.

https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/hot-cold-and-deadl....

> Our ancestor figured out air climatisation as well

This is a large, expensive structure, proving my point. You can't just wear more free animal skins and be fine.

> Point is that way more people die from cold than from heat.

That is the point in Montreal, but that is not the point in Vietnam. Their climate is precariously hot already (with high wet bulb temperatures, unlike in Iran), so a small imbalance in the upper extremes can kill a lot of poor people who don't have access to A/C. That should be no problem in 30 years if they are allowed to migrate to cooler countries, but the conservatives inside those colder countries have and will effectively ban that possibility for the large majority of them due to xenophobic attitudes. It's a rather disgusting situation given that these are the same people that lobbied for the pro-fossil fuel policies that will have put these people in the hot Global South in that predicament to begin with.

Neal Stephenson calls them earthsuits in Termination Shock.

Are you serious? Cultural issues like people not wanting to wear a heavy thick noisy suit completely isolating them from the world at all times. Comfort issues like wearing a heavy thick noisy suit isolating you from the world at all times. The fuck.

I'd say it's more a character issue, but I can see how someone who either speaks English as a second language or is part of some subculture who likes wearing isolation suits a la furries would call it "culture"

More of a counterculture really.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be uncomfortable

To be clear, the Fremen should not be an aspirational goal.

They, at least, got to have spice, and potentially prescient powers.

But we're not ruining the globe for interstellar travel, it's to keep some companies stock price high.

Adam Savage built such a suit though it was not solar powered. He used it for cosplaying in oppressive heat and the AC was an upgrade over using ice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Ti4GP0ntE

they make these for race cars

https://www.advanced-autosports.com/collections/drive-gear

there are other companies that do airflow-based solutions as well.

making your own wouldn't be that hard, plenty of amateur racers have done it.

This can help places that used to be cloudier, but also, a good % of the world already was mostly bright sunny days. The people already hot, my guess would be, will not see a big amount of upside here.

Places decreasingly temperate will see some real benefits to solar energy availability.

I don't think we have a good idea what happens to wind, as we heat. It's anyone's guess. But we are seeing constant ocean current slow down & change. That feels the the silent prime mover here, the real impact of climate on the ocean, which begets so many climactic cycles.

I do think personal cooling is a somewhat neat possibility. The thermo acoustic heat pumps on particular seem miniaturizable in interesting ways. But right now this is a fairly dystopian sci fi, one where personal cooling is a battlesuit against the awful overshot arrived-bad-future.

> Vietnam’s record was measured indoors at Hoi Xuan station

In 2018 I built an extension to our home in the west of Sweden. It was a warm summer with temperatures up to 32°C - which is warm for where we live - but that just made for a balmy environment to work in. That was, until I was forced to put a temporary roof (in the form of a 12x10 metre tarpaulin supported on long poles lodged on the corners of the building, spanning over the front half of the building where I was building the extension) over the whole project due to some wandering thunderstorms. The building is about 8 metres high, the tarpaulin was supported about 2 metres above it. When I was working on the new roof I had a look at the thermometer I had placed there as it was clear that this "inside" temperature would be higher than the "outside" one. It was: 44°C. With three sides open to the outside and about 2 metres of height between the roof-under-construction and the tarpaulin the "inside" was about 12°C warmer than the "outside". I took a photo of that thermometer to save this "highest ever temperature of 44°C" for future generations. Maybe I should send that photo to the Guardian to see what they'll make of it?

How does the measurement compare to the same moment at Death Valley?

+ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_temperature_recorded_o...

Vietnam is presumably a lot more humid than Death Valley. I would compare wet bulb temperature instead.

Death Valley doesn't have humidity levels that are so high sweat doesn't work.

It'll still dehydrate you quick and put you down fast, but in theory you can keep going so long as you've got water and a lil bit of salt.

That won't do you any good in the humidity heat bulbs.

Luckily i've not yet needed an Air Condition in the countryside.

Sounds normal

That’s like a relatively nice day in Phoenix during the summer.

Except I think Vietnam has crazy high humidity.

Average May Humidity in Hanoi is ~75%, versus 20% in Phoenix.

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