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This National Weather Service (NWS) map shows the projected wet-bulb globe temperatures (WBGT) for Wednesday, July 30 at 3:00 p.m. ET. Areas in red can expect to see "high" WBGT conditions, and areas in grey can expect "extreme" conditions © National Weather Service/ESRI

Well, wet bulb is now a fact of life for the US as seen by the NWS map above, a condition that will become commonplace as civilization moves further into the 21st century but we already know that, right? The implications are dire as with wet bulb, if the temperate and humidity get too high, we cook from the inside out as the body cannot cast off excess heat due to the inability to evaporate said heat by sweating. WB is already impacting the ability to make stuff, a notion posited by BRT on numerous occasions when talking about this dire aspect of GW, the entity that keeps on giving.

An oppressive heat dome has gripped the eastern U.S. this week, prompting the National Weather Service (NWS) to issue heat warnings for nearly 170 million Americans. To make matters worse, severe humidity is making high temperatures feel even hotter.

Extreme heat and humidity make for a deadly combination. The human body lowers its temperature by sweating, and when sweat evaporates, it cools the surface of the skin. Humidity slows this process down, increasing the risk of heat-related illness. To extrapolate the combined physiological impact of heat and humidity, meteorologists look at the wet-bulb temperature. This measurement essentially represents the amount of heat stress the body experiences under hot, humid conditions. It’s also a critical metric for understanding human survivability in a changing climate.

The wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) index

Experts have long believed that a wet-bulb temperature of 35 degrees Celsius (equal to 95 degrees Fahrenheit at 100% humidity or 115 degrees Fahrenheit at 50% humidity) was the threshold at which the human body can no longer cool itself. In recent years, however, researchers have found evidence to suggest that this threshold is actually much lower.

“Based on our research, a wet bulb temperature of around 87 degrees Fahrenheit [30.6 degrees Celsius] at 100% humidity is the critical threshold above which humans cannot maintain a stable core temperature if they were exposed to those conditions for hours at a time,” Kat Fisher, a PhD candidate in the human thermoregulatory lab at Penn State University, told Gizmodo in an email.

Think about India, I know I have.