In 1933, Irving Berlin composed the song ‘Heat Wave ‘.
We're having a heat wave
A tropical heat wave
The temperature's rising
It isn't surprising
She certainly can can-can
The hottest summer so far, and the coolest from now on!
Almost a hundred years later, Bart Simpson says to his dad: “This is the hottest summer of my life.”
Homer responds by simply switching the emphasis to “This is the coldest summer of the rest of your life!”
Now, imagine for a moment that you are in bed with an electric blanket. You are just warm enough with a duvet. You fall asleep and dream. You dream you are the Princess Gaia, comfortable in bed, wide awake. Servants come in with an extra duvet; you get hot and try to get out of bed, but you can’t; you can’t move. The servants keep coming in with yet more duvets, another and another. You are getting hotter and hotter; you are sweating, can’t breathe, a nightmare. Shouting to stop, you are helpless, scared, wishing for a Prince to rescue you until you wake, relieved it was just a dream.
It isn’t the best analogy to our heatwave situation, but think of Gaia (our Earth) getting constant heat from the sun (electric blanket) warming her, and the duvet as the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide acts like a gatekeeper; it is transparent to our eyes and lets shortwave radiant heat from the sun pass through. That heats everything on Earth, where it is transformed into longwave radiant heat and reflected into the atmosphere, except that carbon dioxide, like a duvet, is not so good at letting it out, and this keeps our planet ‘cosy’.
Burning fossil fuels created extra carbon dioxide duvets for the planet
That was fine until we started burning fossil fuel in the 19th century. Extra carbon dioxide means, like more duvets, the atmosphere gets hotter, and consequently we now have much more unstable weather, including heatwaves. Unless we stop burning fossil fuels, which produce excessive carbon dioxide, we will, sooner than later, reach a tipping point where, no matter what we do, the trapped heat will continue to grow beyond the point at which we can survive.
Humans have briefly survived dry saunas, or experimental chambers at 100°C–115°C for mere minutes. However, in dry air, for short periods, temperatures of 50–55 °C can be endured before core body failure. The critical temperatures are a mere 35°C at 100% tropical humidity, and 45°C at 50% humidity.
Humid heat means no way to cool down
Body failure occurs when we get too hot. To cool down, like when we have a fever, we sweat. The sweat evaporates and cools us, keeping our core body temperature within safe limits. As humidity rises, our sweat cannot evaporate; and eventually, as our core body temperature continues to rise until it can no longer cope, we will die, along with most of life on Earth. This is called extinction!
One animal that epitomises survival in the desert and heat is the camel. A recent BBC report had this headline: ‘Even camels can’t cope: Africa’s ships of the desert hit by rising temperatures.’
“They get blisters on their feet, their eyes become watery and the hot sand burns their skin and eats up their hair when they are sitting,” said the 40-year-old who owns around 500 camels.” Said Ali Umer, a camel herder”
“The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says extreme heat events have become a common phenomenon in several North African countries with heatwaves having increased with a clear upward trend since 1981.
“It said a number of countries in the region and the Middle East reported temperatures above 50C in 2024.” This is why many herders in Ethiopia have moved their camels from the northern region, where the animals were found historically, to the south where water and vegetation are relatively available, experts there say.”
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