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It clearly says in the article, right at the bottom of the section I quoted before:
Quote:
I give a 2-point validity to this only because it still deserves a thorough scientific investigation by an official organization in order to put the record to bed once and for all.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
Not as nearly quickly as 40c water will give you hyperthermia. Yet still, the hot tub is a lot more enjoyable to enter compared to 18c sea water.
Correct on both points. And for the 15 minutes that you can healthily stay in a hot tub, I would say 55°F/12.8°C would be the magic number for cold water&hypothermia
Note:I used to be able to handle 65°-70°F/18.3°-21.1°C water when I lived in Upstate NY (handle, not enjoy), but now after living half my life in Phoenix, I can't handle water under 80°F/26.7°C anymore, and pleasant water for me is 84°F/28.9°C or warmer
In Kuwait, the 130+- days would usually be when there was a strong wind from the deserts to the North in Iraq (The Shamal) or east from Saudi (Samoon or "poisson wind"). The winds off the interior desert would shut down the normal bits of humidity from the Gulf and make incredibly dry conditions. Lots of people would get nose bleeds from the 10% humidity.
It was really amazing, though, how well evaporative cooling worked. I'd get into our large camp swimming pool with its 90 degree hot tub-warm water (without a heater!) and swim until I got dizzy and when I got out into that wind the water would evaporate so fast I'd even get a chill (for a few short minutes only before it felt like Hades again).
The very worst thing about this was the unbelievable sandstorms the hot desert winds would kick uphttp://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/50501991.jpg. One of the worst of recent years accured in March 2011 (see picture) and it was bad enough to shut down the U.S. Air Base. Our villa had two or three inches of sand and dust just from the partly open bathroom ventilation windows.
That's an old article from 2010. In the new updated article from 2016, the validity score is clearly 2. In both articles, he mentions that "it is most likely not a valid reading when one looks at all the evidence."
The reason that the validity dropped since 6 years ago is most probably due to the extensive work of William Reid (which he references in the updated article) in scrutinizing the record and showing why such a reading is virtually impossible at the Greenland Ranch station:
That's an old article from 2010. In the new updated article from 2016, the validity score is clearly 2. In both articles, he mentions that "it is most likely not a valid reading when one looks at all the evidence."
The reason that the validity dropped since 6 years ago is most probably due to the extensive work of William Reid (which he references in the updated article) in scrutinizing the record and showing why such a reading is virtually impossible at the Greenland Ranch station:
For example, he said nearby locations, such as Las Vegas (and I would add Needles) were not warmer than average or approached their record high when Death Valley had its 134 degrees F reading.
As mentioned before, I have followed the summer temps at Death Valley since 1981 and it is a strange place. It can be very hot even when other desert areas are much cooler.
Here are two examples:
Date----------------- Maximum/minimum temperature
July 24, 2003
Death Valley--------- 122/103
Needles-------------- 101/86
Las Vegas------------ 103/87
July 12, 2012
Death Valley--------- 120/107
Needles-------------- 103/88
Las Vegas------------ 104/89
As can be seen, a big temperature difference between Death Valley and the other two locations. In fact, both Needles and Las Vegas were slightly above normal and Death Valley several degrees above normal.
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