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Jan Barendrecht's avatar

What's missing in the article is the (huge) influence of humidity - the issue generalized as "wet bulb temperature". The calculator at this site

https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/wet-bulb

shows that even at 40C but with RH just 20%, you can have a nice hike without overheating (provided there's enough water to drink).

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Kevin Hester's avatar

One correction I'll make is the latest science is that a Wet Bulb temperature of 31C can be fatal.

Added below, thx Ugo.

https://kevinhester.live/2016/05/21/wet-bulb-temperature-soon-to-become-the-leading-cause-of-death/

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Peace2051's avatar

An insightful summary. Adam Fenech, a Canadian ecologist has studied collapsing societies for decades from an ecological point of view. He suggests that most people will die not from heat nor cold during extreme weather events but rather from opportunistic disease after months of malnutrition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKDjjX4v6Ds

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Athanasius's avatar

Life is an entropy pump, take in low entropy input to lower entropy inside and discard MORE entropy outside, it's a process similar to a heat pump...

It is natural that a BIG part of the entropy expelled is in the form of waste heat.

By analogy with a heat pump more is the sink (ambient) heat less efficient is the process, less performing is the system more inefficiency matter to keep the pumping running and if no pumping entropy no life!

A bit of over simplification, but explain why there are more people and animals in the freezing regions compared to the hottest one. Side note is that tropical regions are less hot compared to hot desert one.

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John Day MD's avatar

It does depend on the temperatures the person is actually exposed to, and statistics are not really kept on people-living-exclusively-outdoors in most places.

The Germans likely did some research in the 1930s-1940s, and Napoleon had some experience.

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