
Hottest places in the world in the past 24 hours are all in Australia - mrmondo
http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynext?lang=en&state=World&rank=100&ano=2019&mes=01&day=25&hora=01&Send=send#tmax
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markdown
> In 2015, Australian immigration minister Peter Dutton quipped about the fate
> of the Pacific Islands in the face of climate change, prompting laughter
> from then-prime minister Tony Abbott.

> "Time doesn't mean anything when you're about to be… you know, have water
> lapping at your door," Mr Dutton said.

> Mr Morrison, then the social services minister, pointed out to both men that
> a microphone was above them."

Last week Morrison visited Fiji as Australian PM and, presumably alluding to
the above exchange, the Fijian PM said to him:

> "Here in Fiji, climate change is no laughing matter. From where we are
> sitting, we cannot imagine how the interests of any single industry can be
> placed above the welfare of Pacific peoples — vulnerable people in the world
> over."

\- From [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-18/climate-change-is-
no-...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-18/climate-change-is-no-laughing-
matter-fiji-pm-says/10724582)

Hopefully now that aussies are feeling the heat, they'll elect someone who
actually cares about climate change. Australia is the worlds largest exporter
of coal, and all those chickens are coming home to roost.

~~~
crispinb
The current fed government is such a laughing stock at this point, it's all
but inevitable that the next one will be at least some improvement.

~~~
yesenadam
>it's all but inevitable that the next one will be at least some improvement.

That same thought was what kept me going through the long Howard years...How
wrong I was!

~~~
crispinb
The Aus well of political disappointment does indeed seem near bottomless ..
thanks for reminding me ;)

~~~
stevesimmons
... though speaking as an Australian now living in the UK, the current state
of UK politics is far worse that Australia's ever was. :(

~~~
crispinb
Hah I'm a pommie escapee to Aus. You're right, the UK is a schmozzle. Talk
about shooting yourself in the foot.

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phs318u
It has been pretty bad here. This [0] might be interesting for anyone wanting
to check out how anomalous these temps are against long-term averages.
Apparently South Australia had 17 temperature records broken on Thursday
(though I can't find the link now).

[0]
[http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/index.jsp?colour=colour&...](http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&step=0&map=maxanom&period=daily&area=nat)

~~~
tonny747
20 records according to the this link
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-24/sa-heating-up-with-
re...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-24/sa-heating-up-with-records-
expected-to-be-broken/10745220)

~~~
stock_toaster
49.5c (121f) is damnably hot. wow

~~~
kbouck
Given enough time, that's about hot enough to cook a piece of beef to rare.

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m3nu
In other news: "Australian coal exports hit record high"

~~~
crispinb
the climate's always changing .. if not nice clean Aus coal exports then
S.African brown .. sky is falling in lol .. it's snowing here what global
warming lol .. what about Al Gore .. it hasn't warmed since 1996 .. what about
the promised ice age .. (etc).

Just thought we should get those out of the way.

~~~
swampthinker
It's shocking how damaging Gore has been to the climate change image to
deniers.

~~~
SturgeonsLaw
If it wasn't him, they'd be latching on to another strawman. As an Australian
who has been living in this heatwave, and as an inhabitant of planet Earth,
it's time we ignored the deniers and just got shit done. Theirs is a position
borne of self interest and ignorance, and we should stop giving equal credence
to a demonstrably incorrect opinion.

~~~
stu432
No credence is given to climate change deniers, credence is given to the
economy, jobs and bribes (in reverse order).

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xanth
To be fair the southern hemisphere only accounts for 31% of the world's
landmass and of that Australia is 20% of the total landmass in the southern
hemisphere experiencing summer right now.

~~~
crispinb
True, it's probably typical for a good proportion of S.Hem summer maxes to be
in Australia.

The actual values aren't typical though - many temperature records being
broken, bushfires in places that haven't experienced them in the past, etc.

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point78
I'd take cold over hot any day of the week, but when we are talking about
extreme cold or extreme hot I'm not sure which is worse?

I guess you could survive longer in extreme heat?

~~~
FooHentai
You can survive in extreme heat with low humidity. Once the 'wet bulb'
temperature exceeds 35 degrees C, sweating is no longer effective, core
temperature rises, and you die.

Extremes of cold must be a different story, about how much insulation can
protect core temperature. There's probably a minimum temp at which something
like respiration just ceases to work. This article has some good info:
[https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/scie...](https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/science/cold_humans.php)

~~~
yesenadam
35˚C extreme? You die? That doesn't sound right. Anecdata: There was a strange
heat wave here in Sydney about 7 or 8 years ago, where for a week or two it
was 35˚ (and humid) all night, every night. It was uncomfortable, sure, but
not extreme heat, I wouldn't say. I've never lived in a house with air-
conditioning in Australia (and I grew up somewhere hotter than Sydney, which
isn't particularly hot), hardly ever used a fan, even.

~~~
FooHentai
Doesn't it? The key point though is that this is wet bulb temperatures. Today,
there aren't many areas of the globe where that is experienced.

"A sustained wet-bulb temperature exceeding 35 °C (95 °F) is likely to be
fatal even to fit and healthy people, unclothed in the shade next to a fan; at
this temperature our bodies switch from shedding heat to the environment, to
gaining heat from it."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Wet-
bulb_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Wet-
bulb_temperature_and_health)

"Peak heat stress, quantified by the wet-bulb temperature TW, is surprisingly
similar across diverse climates today. TW never exceeds 31 °C. Any exceedence
of 35 °C for extended periods should induce hyperthermia in humans and other
mammals, as dissipation of metabolic heat becomes impossible. While this never
happens now, it would begin to occur with global-mean warming of about 7 °C,
calling the habitability of some regions into question. With 11–12 °C warming,
such regions would spread to encompass the majority of the human population as
currently distributed."

[https://www.pnas.org/content/107/21/9552.full](https://www.pnas.org/content/107/21/9552.full)

~~~
yesenadam
Hmm yeah thanks, hadn't heard of that. e.g. "An example of the threshold at
which the human body is no longer able to cool itself and begins to overheat
is a humidity level of 50% and a high heat of 46 °C (115 °F), as this would
indicate a wet-bulb temperature of 35 °C (95 °F)." (wikip)

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aethr
The temperature scale on windy.com doesn't really go high enough to depict how
hot it is in Australia today: [https://www.windy.com/-Temperature-
temp?temp,-27.917,137.109...](https://www.windy.com/-Temperature-
temp?temp,-27.917,137.109,3)

~~~
DrStalker
Some weather maps added purple to Australian heat maps a few years ago to fix
that lack of range.

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mrmondo
When I went to jump in the shower this morning (Melbourne) at around 7AM, it
was 32deg or so, the taps in the shower were actually too hot for me to touch,
I had to use a facecloth over them.

~~~
chrstphrknwtn
Are your shower taps in direct sunlight?

~~~
mrmondo
Indirect, but the light comes from a west-facing window that I've since
covered in tinfoil heh.

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viksit
And the lowest are all in Russia and Canada. (first question I had after
reading this headline). Wonder if similar records are being broken there?

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hema_n
49.6 is the highest..oh my god!!

