RUSSIAN ROULETTE / ‘Wet Bulb’ has the Potential to End the War in Ukraine Virtually Overnight
Update: This is my first attempt at embedding graphics in my post, but not successfully. If anyone would could advise me as to why they keep getting dropped I would be very grateful. :-)
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Although ‘wet bulb’ sounds oddly innocuous, like an unfamiliar gardening term and therefore innocent enough, it is anything but, and in fact has the potential to create a living hell. That so few people have even heard of it is a disturbing example of the suppression of critical climate information.
https://climate.nasa.gov/ask-nasa-climate/3151/too-hot-to-handle-how-climate-change-may-make-some-places-too-hot-to-live/
Wet bulb is the moniker used to identify the threshold of meteorological conditions that cause heatstroke. When it manifests in conjunction with the unprecedented weather extremes being caused by global warming, it can rise to the level of a catastrophic horror. Furthermore, due to the capricious abnormalities of weather in our altered world, it can strike almost anywhere in the tropical and temperate zones, as it already has.
The effects can range from severe discomfort to unpreventable death on a massive scale, depending on the severity and geographic location. And it’s caused by a simple ratio of temperature to humidity.
I first became aware of this meteorological phenomenon through an article I read in the New Yorker, profiling Kim Stanley Robinson, the brilliant science fiction writer (or perhaps more accurately ‘science projection’ writer) probably best known for his popular Mars trilogy. In his most recent book “Ministry for the Future”, he creates a scientifically based scenario for an event of this nature striking on a grand scale in 2025.
We may be seeing weather conditions aligning for an event of this type on the European continent; its probability and scale yet to be determined.
The name “wet bulb” is derived from the technique of wrapping a wet rag around the bulb of a mercury thermometer. As the rag’s dampness evaporates, it cools the bulb, moderating the thermometer reading in contrast to the actual heat level outside. If the outside level reaches 95F/35C and the humidity reaches 100%, the water will cease to evaporate and the mercury will begin to climb. (Past 35C, the higher the outside temperature, the lower the relative humidity required for entering this danger zone.) The evaporation from the wet cloth simulates the manner in which the cooling effect of the evaporation of sweat maintains a constant body temperature as it is being affected by climate, and thus the wrapped thermometer makes a simple and available monitoring device for determining the critical point at which sweat evaporation shuts down and heatstroke sets in. If this conjunction is reached and those exposed to it do not get into a climate controlled space within 6 hours, they will die. Water won’t help, shade won’t help and in the right circumstances masses of humans and animals can perish.
Europe has already experienced the warmest winter on record and it is feared that things will get worse. In 2022, because Europe and the UK had low humidity and widespread drought at the time, they safely rode-out the summer without the threat of a wet bulb event, although at one point the UK was being warned about the potential for a very high death toll when the temperatures reached all-time record highs. There is no guarantee the Brits and Europeans will continue to be so lucky.
Estimates vary as to the amount of indoor space in Europe and the UK that have air conditioning. It is thought to be in the range of less than 5% for residences, while 65% of office space and 30% of retail space may have it. As stopgap, various forms of transport vehicles might also provide temporary refuge. Wine cellars, basements, caves, tunnels, etc, depending on size, location and other specifics could potentially provide shelter as well. With a well-organized emergency response the vast majority of people would survive, but livestock and wild animals would not fare well.
From an article by Tim Andersen, Ph.D. on Medium.com:
“Consider this from a Science article written in 2020:
‘In the heat wave that ravaged Europe, wet bulb temperatures hit 28°C.
Even higher wet bulb temperatures hit parts of Europe in the 2022 heat wave, suggesting that warming is becoming deadlier by the year.’”
…and this from Google:
“The bad news is, as previously mentioned, the 35 degree Celsius wet-bulb is an upper limit for mammals, not a lower survivability limit, meaning that in reality the limit may be reached sooner, with less global warming.”
Since Ukraine is on the fringe of Europe and weather patterns and intensity are becoming far less predictable long term, due to the disruption of climatic patterns, there is no guarantee that it is safe from a wet bulb event. With climate collapse, there doesn’t appear to be an ‘’out of range’’ setting anymore, almost anywhere for almost any climatic condition.
Although, statistically the probability may still appear very low, if southern Ukraine were to become the focus of atmospheric conditions conducive to widespread heatstroke, the majority of troops on the front would have few options for seeking refuge because most climate-controlled buildings will have been destroyed. Although various vehicles could provide AC, whether they would provide enough space for Ukrainian military and civilians is beyond my knowledge. Depending on the duration of the danger, possibly up to a week or more, the supply of engine fuel could become an issue. A well-planned and carefully executed evacuation might save most of the imperiled, but there would always be the risk of a strategic attack by Russia on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure disabling climate controlled shelter elsewhere. Overall losses, especially of Russian forces, might still prove to be disastrous and simply coping with the situation would bring the conflict to a screeching halt. Inevitably there would be human losses, while livestock, as well as whatever wildlife remained, could end up decimated. If the aftermath conditions were severe enough there might never be a return to arms might.
Of course ‘wet bulb’ conditions could affect a portion of Russia instead, thus benefiting Ukraine and possibly resolving the conflict by destroying what is left of Russian capabilities. Or the conflict could be halted by a severe heat wave even if this did not rise to the level of a wet bulb threat. Climate collapse has many weapons in its arsenal, as we’ve just witnessed with the flash flooding of Ft Lauderdale, Florida, which would turn trenches into canals.
Most likely, a wet bulb event will not strike Ukraine directly, but it could still seriously undermine or even end European or American support for the war. Canada has already suffered losses, although, as can be seen on the following map, it is not historically prone to such conditions.
From The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: In 2021, as the Pacific Northwest sweltered under a heat dome, more than 650,000 farm animals perished in British Columbia alone. And in 2015, a deadly heat wave in India killed more than 17 million chickens.
https://thebulletin.org/2022/07/extreme-heat-animals-livestock-wildlife/
“This map shows locations that experienced extreme heat and humidity levels briefly(hottest 0.1% of daily maximum wet bulb temperatures) from 1979-2017. Darker colors show more severe combinations of heat and humidity. Some areas have already experienced conditions at or near humans' survivability limit of 35°C (95°F). Map by NOAA Climate.gov, based on data from Radley Horton.” (Source NOAA)
As can be clearly seen however, half of the United States does have a history of susceptibility to high heat and humidity and there is a real threat of wet bulb striking here. Compare Western Europe to the Eastern States to start to get a glimmer of the potential magnitude.
A serious wet bulb event on American, European and /or UK soil would necessarily cause a shift in priorities that could very well leave Ukraine bereft of support.
Perhaps of more interest here, a close look at the map shows that the Ukraine area is not free of episodes of heat and humidity, which have been comparable to those in France, but incomparably more severe than those in England.
France suffered greatly last summer, so the question arises as to how Ukraine will fare going forward.
On this map, Ukraine is directly above the Black Sea while surrounded by land on all other sides. It appears about the size of France. Darker colors indicate greater severity of climatic events.
While it remains comforting to view this scenario as more or less out of the range of probability, climate collapse is rapidly changing the rules. Possibility is expanding, crowding out the comfort zone of what might have once been seen as improbable. While, in 2022 Ukraine could still be placed in a very unlikely worst-case category, see what it looks like on the map that Peter Olandt included in his recent post of 4/17:
I bring all of this up specifically to make DK readers, especially those following the Ukraine conflict, aware of the fact that the environment not only already plays a critical, though largely unaddressed part in the Ukraine conflict, but it also has the capability to suddenly shift to center stage and subsume all else.
Weather is certainly among the most powerful natural forces on earth and with climate collapse now taking charge of it, all bets are off.
Mark and Kos seem to have, for one reason or another, dismissed environmental concerns, including climate collapse, from the “strategic planning table” of the war. This is a serious omission, rooted in cognitive dissonance. But, far more important is that they have, through deflection of focus caused by their resignation to the DK readership’s preferences, also dismissed the environment as a viable, indeed critical issue for DK political action and thus as a cause in need of their leadership. I understand that denial and cognitive dissonance are pervasive and stealthy and that it requires constant vigilance to keep them from tossing out reason and logic to turn our cognitive clarity into a cuckoo’s nest. Because of this, I do not hold it against Mark or Kos for accepting what they see as a very reasonable stance regarding climate awareness on DK. In this their response is unfortunately normal.
At the same time however, because I know them to both be outspoken and direct when they believe the circumstances warrant it, I do not feel the need to pussy_foot around when I try to get them to see that they are wrong and that this is a terrible thing, because climate collapse is enabled in the process. While telling the unvarnished truth can seem like ‘bashing’, it is the intent that needs to be gauged, not the discomfort of initial impact.
The environment along with climate collapse has always has been a third independent player in this war, and not recognizing this is a major intelligence failure by all parties at all levels. As Ukraine and Russia continue to burn through their reserves, climate collapse gets stronger and has an inexhaustible well to pull from. It may at any time mount an unstoppable offensive of its own and level the playing field in the process. Let’s just hope Ukraine beats the clock.
While I was preparing this post, Pakalolo also wrote about ‘wet bulb’ just this past Sunday 4/16:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/16/2164161/-India-may-tip-this-year-to-a-wet-bulb-temperatures-threshold-that-will-test-human-survival
His post addresses the threat posed to the Indian sub-continent by El Niño as summer approaches and I’ve read elsewhere that El Niño will also have a serious affect on Europe during the same time period.
On Monday 4/17, Peter Olandt weighed in with a substantive post on the largely unreported role climate has played in the Ukraine conflict.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/17/2161383/-Ukraine-The-First-Climate-War?utm_campaign=trending
I addressed some of this in mid-January, exposing what I felt was the serious lack of environmental coverage in the DK war reports (General Mud for example and horrendous environmental war damage for another).
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/16/2147512/-Environmental-Destruction-Flies-Under-the-Radar-in-Ukraine-Coverage-on-DK
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