OK, fair point. I was a bit naive. I was looking at it from an European standpoint. The nights are cool here and the houses are all made of bricks and very thick insulation. In those circumstances it is possible to trap the temperature. In my house the inside temperature is currently 22C/71F and outside 34C/93F. No AC needed.
No worries. Hope I wasn’t too harsh. Just want people to realize their personal experiences with only their local climates should probably not be letting that limited set of personal experiences then shape their own understanding of areas of the world of which they are far less familiar…
Imagine someone who’s never been in the desert going “why are they wearing full white robes?”
…and then that same person proclaiming : “Shouldn’t they just wear a t-shirt and that will help keep them cool?”
Not that I’ve lived in any desert before or worn anything like that before, but when wondering that myself, instead of thinking I knew better, I looked up some info… and instead found out that those “full-length white robes” actually not only protect their skin from UV ray damage, but also help insulate them from the heat better than just wearing less would in climates with less brutally hot dry temperatures. Also keeps wind from blasting sand against their skin, and when the temperature drops at night in the desert, that style of clothing also does a better job at keeping them warm.
Ah yeah let me check my thermometer after a whole night of ventilation… yeah it’s still 27, down from 28 last night whooo. And this is my bedroom which is towards north.
European living in a “temperate climate” here. A decade ago, I didn’t need AC. Temperatures over 30 happened for a few days at a time a couple times per summer. Heatwaves that killed old folk with sustained temperatures over 35 for a week happened once a decade.
Now it’s the norm. We see temperatures in May that would only have been possible in the peak of August in the mid-2000s. We see temperatures over 35 everyday for weeks at a time. When it finally rains, it doesn’t cool down anymore. It just gets unbearably humid. Temperatures at night don’t fall down below 28 after a few days.
Even worse. My living room, home office and kitchen are in full sunlight the whole afternoon. I can live in the dark, but the walls have a thick insulation. Insulation doesn’t deflect heat, it stores it and slows it down. It’s literally accumulating heat as soon as a single sun ray touches it. Once the heat creeps through, they stay hot and radiate for a week. You could ventilate all you want, you can’t fight the thermal mass of a wall heated through its core up to 45C.
Climate change transformed my mild-winters, warm-summer region into a rainy-winters, unbearably hot summers region in a few decades.
Nah, I’m in Europe too and my external thermometer last night recorded a minimum temperature of 26,6°C, it’s on the wall so real temperature was probably 25. My apartment is at the last floor of an old building, so insulation isn’t good…
My roller shutters (external, real European ones) and awnings are automated to maximize airflow and reduce sunlight exposure, but in August my AC never turns off.
OK, fair point. I was a bit naive. I was looking at it from an European standpoint. The nights are cool here and the houses are all made of bricks and very thick insulation. In those circumstances it is possible to trap the temperature. In my house the inside temperature is currently 22C/71F and outside 34C/93F. No AC needed.
No worries. Hope I wasn’t too harsh. Just want people to realize their personal experiences with only their local climates should probably not be letting that limited set of personal experiences then shape their own understanding of areas of the world of which they are far less familiar…
Imagine someone who’s never been in the desert going “why are they wearing full white robes?”
…and then that same person proclaiming : “Shouldn’t they just wear a t-shirt and that will help keep them cool?”
Not that I’ve lived in any desert before or worn anything like that before, but when wondering that myself, instead of thinking I knew better, I looked up some info… and instead found out that those “full-length white robes” actually not only protect their skin from UV ray damage, but also help insulate them from the heat better than just wearing less would in climates with less brutally hot dry temperatures. Also keeps wind from blasting sand against their skin, and when the temperature drops at night in the desert, that style of clothing also does a better job at keeping them warm.
Ah yeah let me check my thermometer after a whole night of ventilation… yeah it’s still 27, down from 28 last night whooo. And this is my bedroom which is towards north.
European living in a “temperate climate” here. A decade ago, I didn’t need AC. Temperatures over 30 happened for a few days at a time a couple times per summer. Heatwaves that killed old folk with sustained temperatures over 35 for a week happened once a decade.
Now it’s the norm. We see temperatures in May that would only have been possible in the peak of August in the mid-2000s. We see temperatures over 35 everyday for weeks at a time. When it finally rains, it doesn’t cool down anymore. It just gets unbearably humid. Temperatures at night don’t fall down below 28 after a few days.
Even worse. My living room, home office and kitchen are in full sunlight the whole afternoon. I can live in the dark, but the walls have a thick insulation. Insulation doesn’t deflect heat, it stores it and slows it down. It’s literally accumulating heat as soon as a single sun ray touches it. Once the heat creeps through, they stay hot and radiate for a week. You could ventilate all you want, you can’t fight the thermal mass of a wall heated through its core up to 45C.
Climate change transformed my mild-winters, warm-summer region into a rainy-winters, unbearably hot summers region in a few decades.
Nah, I’m in Europe too and my external thermometer last night recorded a minimum temperature of 26,6°C, it’s on the wall so real temperature was probably 25. My apartment is at the last floor of an old building, so insulation isn’t good…
My roller shutters (external, real European ones) and awnings are automated to maximize airflow and reduce sunlight exposure, but in August my AC never turns off.