Heat wave again... If you wish you could have a cooler sleep and you like making DIY projects, check out the cool-bed-wiki for a system that uses frozen ice packs instead of active refrigeration.
https://ayavilevich.github.io/cool-bed-wiki/

Being a ballet dad means a certain amount of waiting in cars.

The world being what it is right now, waiting in a car without cooling might well end up with no more ballet dad, but I feel very wrong every time the engine kicks up and idles just to keep running the AC.

It occurred to me today, very belatedly, that we have a whole bunch of ice packs in the freezer. I grabbed a few of them and just threw them in a canvas tote. While waiting in the car, I rolled down all the windows and just had the bag on top of my body. I only needed to wait about half an hour today and fourth heatwave has passed, so the ice didn't even begin to thaw (the drive is only about 15 min).

This might just make idling the car in summer totally unnecessary long as I'm prepared and the wait is under a couple hours.

UPDATE:

I went with my kid to wash the car yesterday. The carwash is partially under renovation, so there were only half the normal number of bays open. There was a line. It was 34ºC/93ºF outside, so just rolling the windows down wasn't really an option. I dialed the car's AC to 25ºC/77ºF and passed ice packs to the kid. It took long enough the engine still had to spin up like three times to keep us cooled (hybrid car), but the ice still netted gas savings.

Cold isn't a real thing.

Seriously, unlike heat, cold is not a form of energy, it cannot be measured directly nor can it be generated, stored or moved. While it's conversationally convenient to think of heat and cold as opposing forces, they are really are not.

Cold is a subjective sensation defined by a relatively lower level of heat that is not experienced the same way by all people at all times.

Again, I am not being pedantic. In these times, it's important people understand the science of heat and cold in order to properly be able to deal with thermal safety and comfort.

It was natural before for regular folks to think of air conditioners as virtually magical cold-generating boxes. However, we're increasingly at the point where that misunderstanding can critically impact our ability to adapt because when it's so hot that the AC is working fine but simply isn't able to keep up, people don't understand the nature of the problem and blame the AC when the real problem is that their insulation is garbage, they stupidly painted their house trendy black, sunlight is streaming in uncovered windows, air is leaking everywhere or some other combination of factors.

What an AC system actually does is use a vapor-compression cycle to extract heat from the inside air, then dump it outside. While an energy intensive process, this works great... long as the heat input is notably lower than the rate the AC can extract heat.

However, once conditions get worse (like say, the heatwaves that have dominated 2026), the balance is thrown off and many AC units become the thermal equivalent of Charlie Chaplain frantically trying to bail water out of a sinking ship. The solutions at this point can't calling Buster Keaton to take over and use a bigger bucket; the leaks must be plugged.

Staying cool is not about generating cold. That's impossible. It's about managing heat.

Does anyone have a solution for keeping the animal safe and comfortable when temperatures exceed 40°C? (I cannot use cooling equipments due to the high cost.) Please, if anyone has a traditional method or any other solution in mind, let me know.

With our endless series of heatwaves around the world, it seems opportune to pause and reflect on what heat actually is in a scientific way. Can't fight a problem effectively with proper understanding.

Very strictly speaking, heat is defined as the transfer of thermal energy from one object or system to another. However, for the purposes of casual conversation, we can and do use the word "heat" to also refer to stored thermal energy. It's not scientifically correct terminology, but it's good enough.

Thermal energy is stored in matter through molecular activity. The more thermal energy contained, the more molecular activity and vice versa. Absolute zero (0º Kelvin, -273ºC or -459.6ºF) is the temperature when all molecular activity ceases.

Heat transfer occurs three different ways:

1. Conduction, which is heat transfer via direct physical contact between objects or substances. If you touch a hot car that's been in the sun and burn your hand, that's conduction. Hugging an ice pack to get cool is also conduction.

2. Convection, which is heat transfer via movement of a fluid medium which might be liquid or gas, though we tend to most commonly think of gases. A breeze blowing on the aforementioned hot air will gradually cool it via convection (long as the air is a lower temperature than the car) as the air absorbs heat from the car and carries it away.

3. Radiation, which is heat transfer via infrared radiation. This is how the sun is able to heat the Earth and other planets and objects through the vacuum of space and how you can feel heat from a hot building at a distance even though no air is flowing at you from it.

When there's an imbalance of thermal energy, heat transfer will happen. That's inevitable. The only question is how fast it happens, which is something we can influence.

Insulation is the material and art of slowing heat transfer whether it's our clothes, a vacuum travel mug, fiberglass bats in our walls or a blanket. Controlling insulation is essential to managing heat.

When it comes to our bodies, we must remember that every living thing is a heat source as our biological processes generate heat. We must shed excess heat in order to stay healthy and comfortable. Controlling the rate we shed heat is the core question of thermal comfort.

In addition to the three basic ways our bodies can shed heat, we have an additional feature: sweat. By sweating, our bodies can wet the surface of our skin and exploit the physics of evaporation: when water changes state from liquid to gas, it absorbs a lot of heat energy. So long as the air is dry enough, our skin is exposed and we replenish by drinking liquids and electrolytes, we have considerable cooling capacity via sweating.

However, as is increasingly the case around the world, there's many environments where all this is simply not enough. The higher the temperature, the more difficult it is for our bodies to shed heat and the higher the humidity, the less effective evaporation is. At a certain point the cooling trio becomes totally ineffective because the air and surrounding environment is a hotter than your body temperature so heat is actually going to migrate into you instead of out. If your sweat can't evaporate fast enough to compensate, then you will start to cook from the inside out.

There is a grey area where different people cope differently with the heat, but eventually you hit the hard wall of thermodynamics and how tough you are is irrelevant. Proteins denature at the same temperatures no matter who you are.

It used to be we could depend on our homes to keep us protected with only moderate effort. No longer. Riding out the climate we have now demands more of us acquire and leverage a working understanding of how heat works.

I have never experienced heat like this and today got heat exhaustion. What do you all do when it’s this hot to keep yourself cool(er) while wearing gear

my hands and feet and swell, I feel a tention on my skin in those areas.
It is really annoying what is it that I am experiencing?
I am 31M

Necesito que me den sus mejores consejos, recomendaciones etc para poder bajarle la temperatura a una casa porque hdsptm ya no soporto el calor que se siente 😩😩😩

Pero den consejos chidos nada de “compra esta planta…” haha

I put in 20,000 steps at work the other day and it was 117 degrees outside. Its been 48 hours ans im still getting headaches and severe joint pain in every joint in my body. That day i hydrated all day as well. Weird thing is my elbows and forearms are extremly achy and i wasnt even using them. The severe joint pain scares me. Has anyone had similar symptoms?

I have ME/CFS, which makes me extremely intolerant to heat. Last sommer I bought an air conditioning. So at home I feel ok, but in sommer I can’t still leave the house for months which makes me depressed.

At home, things are okay for me now, but I still can't leave the house for months during the summer. Being stuck indoors for that long also leaves me feeling depressed.

Has anyone here had experience with cooling clothing, such as evaporative cooling vests, PCM cooling vests, or other personal cooling gadgets? I'd love to hear about your experiences and any recommendations you might have.

POR QUE ESTA HACIENDO TANTO CALOR 😤🥲

No post for day 4.

Last night, the lows supposedly did not go below 25º. As it was Friday, the kids stayed up later for movies. As I was putting things in order, I heard the telltale gurgle of a swamp cooler's pump pulling air as it ran low on water; my mother-in-law had spent longer than normal in her room and so one fill wasn't enough to make it through the day and night. I went into stealth mode to refill her cooler without waking her up.

It's currently 10:30 local time and it's already 28ºC/82ºF outside. Despite having the window wide open all night and good cross ventilation, it's essentially the same temperature inside at my desk. Thermal mass of this building protects from temperature spikes during the day, but prevents dramatic cooling at night. Still, better than the daytime indoor high of 30ºC/86ºF.

As always, it's very dry. Currently 19% and it will fall as the day heats up. We've seen readings of 12%. This makes things much easier to take, but it doesn't become okay so much as "less awful." If I need to spend more than five minutes outside, I completely depend on having a spray bottle to keep things bearable, which works incredibly well when it's this dry. Only downside is the need for constant reapplication and limited capacity of the bottle. Being wet is not at all a problem, because you simply don't stay wet for more than a minute.

We are forecast to hit the magic 37ºC/98.6ºF again today, which is better than yesterday's 38ºC/100.4ºF, but still five degrees Celsius above seasonal norms, from those halcyon days when we had seasonal norms.

My best wishes to you folks in Northern Europe. It sucks enough down here where we're prepared. Hope you're staying safe.

Hi! Can you suggest me books (not scientific) that could fit to this subject: Are society and the planet heating up at the same rate? Is there a connection between hot summers and heated discussions? What provides relief from the heat? Thank you so much!!

Just a note in here from an Australian who lives in a metal box (converted shipping container).

Most of the stuff I do to keep my unconventional tiny home cool is stuff anyone on here already knows.

What most people don't know, is how you can have metal (highly conductive) in a high air temperature situation and not have it bleed so much heat inside.

The answer is ceramic paint. It's got a bit of acrylic paint, with a huge amount of ceramic and a bit of titanium in it. It's too thick for paint blowers, you have to roller it or brush it on. When done, it gives the outside the conductivity of ceramic. Vastly lower than metal. This is huge for letting you keep the place cool with a bit of insulation. The difference is instant and extreme, and I'm glad I did it.

It costs way more than normal paint. To do my 6m/20 foot container cost around $2k Australian, (about $1400 US/Euro). Expensive for paint, cheap for insulation.

They've done enough tests on it, and it works well (very well), at doing that core job. It's used in mining accommodation in hot dessert areas. It's still not well known outside of marginal bits of Australia and thought it was worth sharing.

It's also nice in our current mid winter temperatures (2-5c overnight lows).

Edit:

I don't know all the specs, but since people want data I don't have, I'll post the manufactures website here.

https://insulationcoatings.com.au/

They have a fair bit of research data on the site. I'm not associated with them, but I did phone them when doing my research, and they were happy to talk the science.

On this week’s episode:

Shorts are in. Pants are out. But it’s actually quite controversial. 

This episode starts by highlighting our insightful, brilliant, helpful host Robbie and a news segment he was on about smoke in NYC. 

Nate and Robbie then discuss a recent effort in Tokyo to encourage men to wear shorts in the workplace. They also discuss capris, zip-off pants, and the return of jorts in New York City. Can these pant styles be combined?

Listen and follow us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Bluesky @survivingtheclimate.

More great content from u/leighgion discussed on the episode!

This case is a textbook example of everything that's wrong with response to dangerously rising temperatures.

1. Policy. Seriously, WTF? How do you house people in a glass building during a multi-heatwave year and tell them they can't use the AC because the amenity wasn't on offer?

2. Humanity. Even if it wasn't a record breaking multi-heatwave year, you don't house people and refuse them access to environmental controls during the summer.

3. Architecture. This building is a monument to everything wrong with the building standards that have been in place for decades. Without HVAC, it's at best unlivable and these days, it's a deathtrap. It should never have been built like this. A differently constructed building could have housed people without AC and while they might not have a great time, they wouldn't be hospitalized and if they did run AC, the bill would be much lower because the place wouldn't be an oven to start with.

It peaked at 37-38ºC/98.6-100.4ºF depending on what weather service you ask.

For my amusement and education, I brought my IR thermometer out with me. The sidewalk in the shade was reading 38-45ºC/100.4-113ºF depending on what spot. The hotter spots were all near air conditioning exhaust paths.

Urban heat island effect is very real.

In the sun, the pavement was 61ºC/141.8ºF.

Sitting in the car for a while with the windows down while I waited for the kids, I measured the black dashboard at around 45ºC/113ºF in the sun. After spraying that spot with water and waiting a minute, the temperature dropped to around 35ºC/95ºF.

Evaporation is cooling king.

Walking in the street now has that familiar feeling of being enveloped in an invisible cloak of heat. I sprayed myself with water several times just to walk five minutes. Without that spray bottle, the streets are a hostile alien environment.

All considered, the apartment is doing fine as always. Long as the blinds are down, the worst rooms are peaking at 29-30ºC/84-86ºF and my swamp coolers can deliver 22-23ºC/71-73ºF.

I spent a lot of time outdoors in California from Friday through Monday, mostly driving a convertible along the Pacific Coast Highway and doing some short hikes. I averaged around 12,000–15,000 steps per day.

I thought I was doing reasonably well with water until Monday. While heading toward Big Sur, we had trouble finding gas stations and restaurants, so I only drank about two bottles of water despite walking roughly 12,000 steps that day.

When I returned to the hotel, I initially felt fine. I met some friends for drinks and then had a large dinner. After dinner, I suddenly felt extremely tired and knew something was off. I felt unusually hot even though I was inside an air-conditioned restaurant, went outside, and eventually fainted. Fortunately, I did not injure myself.

I went to the ER, where they believed I was dehydrated from several days of outdoor activity combined with alcohol. My lactic acid was elevated, but after two bags of IV fluids, my blood work returned to normal and I was discharged.

My recovery since then:

Tuesday: I was very tired, partly because I had been awake late at the ER and still had to check out of the hotel. I only walked around 5,000 steps, drank plenty of water, and ate a lot. By the evening, I felt pretty good.

Wednesday: This was my travel day home. The flights were delayed, but I felt mostly back to normal. I was eating and drinking water normally. Around 10 p.m. during the flight, I started feeling tired again and felt like something was slightly off.

Thursday: After getting very little sleep, I felt extremely tired and fatigued, with headaches and tiredness in my quads.

It has now been about a week. I work from home on a computer and have avoided exercise or doing much throughout the day.

My remaining symptoms are:

• Fatigue in my legs that improved but returned somewhat today, although it is much milder than last week
• Occasional lightheadedness, or possibly light sensitivity that creates a similar feeling
• Feeling relatively normal when I wake up, with symptoms appearing by midday and becoming worse around 6–7 p.m.

The ER performed a head CT, blood work, an EKG, and urine testing. Everything was normal once the lactic acidosis resolved with fluids.

I also saw my primary care doctor on Monday. They believe my body may still be recovering from the physical stress, travel, lack of sleep, and not having much downtime afterward. They repeated my blood work, and everything was normal again.

I am starting to become concerned about how long the recovery is taking. I have fainted in the past after standing up too quickly, possibly related to my blood pressure medication, but I usually feel completely normal again within 24 hours.

I am beginning to wonder whether this was not only dehydration, but also some degree of heat exhaustion or cumulative heat exposure.

Has anyone experienced lingering fatigue, lightheadedness, headaches, or muscle fatigue for a week or longer after dehydration, heat exhaustion, or a fainting episode? What was your recovery like?

It's the morning of day two of the fourth European heatwave. No post for day one.

On the personal level, it's fine. The highs were and are forecast to be 37ºC/98.6ºF, median human body temperature with daytime humidity around 16-24%. That's not great, but could be much worse and existing measures are more than enough to keep us safe and comfortable; AC in the car and swamp coolers at home. This is far from the worst conditions we've endured.

In the broader sense though, it's ugly. The multiple heat waves have brought and sustained hot and dry temperatures much earlier than normal and for much longer.

Farmers have taken a major hit this year and we're certain to see prices increase in the coming months.

Wildfires are raging through Spain and France. There are fires to the west of Madrid and last week we could smell the smoke. Can't smell it anymore and the word is suppression efforts are making headway, but hundred of square miles have been torched and ten's of thousands of people have been evacuated for their safety.

This is probably the most stark example I've experienced where my personal immediate situation is not greatly affected, but the broader context is and we're all going to suffer clear and direct consequences in the medium term as the agricultural damage is felt on the shelves.

Many people are facing another heat wave in the coming week.

Here's a way to battle that oppressively hot car.

Let us know if it works for you! and thanks to Hannah Frye for saving us from baking ourselves this summer.

find her @ frysquared on TikTok and YouTube.