A remote township in China's arid northwest endured temperatures of more than 52 Celsius (126 Fahrenheit) on Sunday, state media reported, setting a record for a country that was battling minus 50C weather just six months ago.
Wet bulb temperature is basically converting to 100% humidity equivalent, so as you get closer to 100%, WBT approaches measured temperature. We use this metric because our bodies cool mostly via evaporation, and no evaporation is possible at 100% — the air is already fully saturated. So in general, WBT means minimum possible temperature that can be reached by evaporative cooling.
So it’s about 50C WBT at 90%. Survivable for some minutes, and probably about an hour or so for most humans. Once your body loses the ability to cool, it rushes to match surrounding wet bulb temperature (or even exceed it, since we produce about 100W of heat energy by simply existing).
Wet bulb temperature is basically converting to 100% humidity equivalent, so as you get closer to 100%, WBT approaches measured temperature. We use this metric because our bodies cool mostly via evaporation, and no evaporation is possible at 100% — the air is already fully saturated. So in general, WBT means minimum possible temperature that can be reached by evaporative cooling.
So it’s about 50C WBT at 90%. Survivable for some minutes, and probably about an hour or so for most humans. Once your body loses the ability to cool, it rushes to match surrounding wet bulb temperature (or even exceed it, since we produce about 100W of heat energy by simply existing).