From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Original image: Man at bridge holding head with hands and screaming. By Edvard Munch – WebMuseum at ibiblioPage: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/Image URL: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/munch.scream.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37610298

In Australia and I’m sure in parts of the USA, we call temperatures above 100 a warm summer day. But this hasn’t stopped the BBC from trying to frighten their audience with a little warm weather.

Climate change: Vietnam records highest-ever temperature of 44.1C

Vietnam has recorded its highest ever temperature, just over 44C (111F) – with experts predicting it would soon be surpassed because of climate change.

The record was set in the northern province of Thanh Hoa, where officials warned people to stay indoors during the hottest times of the day.

Other countries in the region have also been experiencing extremely hot weather.

Thailand reported a record-equalling 44.6C in its western Mak province.

Meanwhile Myanmar’s media reported that a town in the east had recorded 43.8C, the highest temperature for a decade.

Both countries experience a hot period before the monsoon season but the intensity of the heat has broken previous records.

In Hanoi, climate change expert Nguyen Ngoc Huy told AFP that Vietnam’s new record was “worrying” given the “context of climate change and global warming”.

“I believe this record will be repeated many times,” he said. “It confirms that extreme climate models are being proven to be true.”

…Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65518528

Britain is a cold country, the UK MET defines temperatures above approximately 28C / 82F as a heatwave – which allows the BBC to write lots of scary stories when a warm part of the world experiences some summer heat.

Are such temperatures dangerous? Sure, if you’re old or infirm – though even in hot countries like India, far more people die from cold weather than warm.

Most people can tolerate and work in seriously hot and humid conditions for an extended period, providing you have a few months of gradual buildup to get used to it, and providing you stay well hydrated.

I know this from personal experience. In my late teens I worked in a poorly ventilated factory with a tin roof. In Summer in Melbourne, the shop floor temperature sometimes exceeded 130F. Due to the leaky hydraulic presses, and vast amounts of steam released by cooking rubber and plastic, there were always big clouds of steam floating around the shop floor and condensing on anything cold, like cans of soft drink.

I don’t know what the web bulb temperature in that factory was, but I’m guessing that according to climate alarmists we should all have been dead – except we weren’t dead. Everyone was fine. And the rest of the workers weren’t all teenagers. At the stations next to me were a bunch of elderly chain smoking East Europeans, a bit further on was a smoking hot pregnant Samoan woman, and the rest were an eclectic mix of people of all ages.

Management did get a little worried sometimes, on really hot days they toured the factory floor, bringing us rehydration fluid drinks every 5 minutes, which I thought was nice. We certainly needed them.

One advantage of working in such extreme conditions, when I walked outside into 110F heat after work, it was like a blast of cold air. I felt cool and comfortable – no distress whatsoever from outside heatwave temperatures.

So when I read reports of what a dire threat to health 110F is, written by scientists or journalists who spend most of their time in air conditioned offices, let’s say I find such claims unconvincing. And I’m guessing most people who have ever worked in a factory or bakery feel the same.