People who live in hot climates, how do you deal with the heat?
I live in a pretty hot climate, but it’s only really unbearable at times due to shoddy building and bad urban planning. Even then, summer can be difficult.
I can’t imagine what it’s like on the equator, especially in dense urban centres. What’s Mumbai, Bangkok, or Singapore like at the height of the wet season?! How do millions of people function day to day?
Have a look at the map here, and also at the satellite view. Zoom in: 37,0593067, 15,2976834
It is a >2000 year old town, still alive and inhabited (mostly by tourists nowadays). People had no air condition back then.
The buildings are made of natural stone. The walls are as heavy as possible. The streets are as narrow as possible (some can be used with a car, some cannot).
I have been there on vacation for two weeks and the effect of this way of building a city is huge! The sun barely reaches the ground in these narrow streets. The heavy walls do not heat up much in the lower floors. They keep some the ground's coolness - and today, some of the air condition's coolness as well, but the local people told me that they use their air condition only in the 3-4 hottest month's of the year.
Expose yourself to moderate heat as much as possible. Your body adapts and then you can handle the extreme heat better.
A lot of people hide inside with AC all the time and then it’s a shock to the system when they go outside.
Also, body composition and fitness can make a huge difference.
Sgp here: you do social activities at night when it's cool.
During the day you stay hydrated, electrolytes, avoid the sun, if you must be in the sun cover yourself with a hat and long sleeves.
Acclimatization takes about 3 months, then you are more or less used to it.
at night when it's cool.
It’s not that much cooler at night. I’m still sweating the entire time. Like through a three layers and a wool suit sweating
I'm about to move further from the equator partially for this reason.
If you can, swim 2-3 times per day, or at least a quick cold shower.
At night it is at least a little more pleasant to be outdoors due to the sun not beating down and you'll feel better for getting out and doing something.
Also seek out indoor spaces with aircon or green spaces with shade that are much more pleasant, if you can.
If you have to do manual work outdoors then god help you.
But you do get a little more used to it over time, but very high temps are always unpleasant.
Mental conditioning and altered behavior.
If you're not used to it the heat can feel oppressive. Some kind of lizard-brain response telling you that the heat is a threat that must be mitigated immediately. Once you get used to it you realise that it's just mild discomfort and that it's not harmful (except for sun burn, heat stroke, et cetera).
You also alter your behavior in simple ways that may not occur to you if you're not used to a hot climate. Like... make mid-day the least active part of your day. You're not going to just duck down to the shops for a bite at 1pm.
altered behavior
After living in Phoenix AZ for a couple years I found myself seeking out shade instinctively while I was outside.
Slightly different from your question, but in Egypt we get through it by not having a wet season. The Egyptian summer is very dry and rain only falls in the winter, so we just... Exist I guess. People who grew up in a certain temperature range tend to be a lot better at dealing with temperatures in that range.
Dry heat and dry cold are much better to deal with than wet heat and cold.
Russians who strive in -30°C get cold in the 0-5°C wet mist that is much of Central Europe during winter.
I was born and raised in Las Vegas. It's a dry heat so water helps. I soak my shirt or hat and I can be outdoors for a while. Loose fitting light colored clothes and a wide brimmed hat go a long way. Stay in the shade or go out at night. Drink plenty of water, this is the biggest thing.
Indoors, a fan can help. An evaporative cooler is very effective in the dry heat. We're spoiled so most places are air conditioned, so I try to go places that are free to be in like the mall, library, grocery store.
Malaysia:
You wake up early for outdoor stuff, like jogging or longer dog walks. I do that between 5.30 and about 7.30 (=sunrise).
Other activities throughout the day are indoors mostly, shops, malls, gyms etc. are all airconditioned.
Most homes that have a garden come with a roofed porch area with a ceiling fan, so that keeps sitting outdoors manageable except for maybe the most intense mid-day heat.
Houses here are also solid brick & concrete constructions, and retain cold air better than the wooden constructs you see in the US and Canada, so you can actually keep homes at bearable temperatures without racking up electricity bills.
That’s what got me thinking about this question initially; the home construction. I understand there’s a lot that can be done tree cover, air flow, and decent thermal material, unfortunately it seems that’s often deemed too expensive in places that aren’t consistently warmer.
I live at the equator and it's always ~28 degrees celsius where I live. You can get almost any temperature at the equator so that really isn't a test of heat. Here in Colombia if you go down the mountains towards the coast or jungle it gets hotter. There the houses are built with lots of natural wind tunnel effects to keep them passively cool. When you're outside in the heat you just get used to it. When I was in Iraq it took us a few weeks to really get used to it but even at 50 degrees celsius you eventually build a tolerance.
Where I live (West Central Florida) we get (weather -wise) a winter and a summer, summer is longer and hot and wet.
The hot I grew up in, so am adapted I suppose, didn't have air conditioning till I was 23. So I can be still in the shade and pretty comfortable. If I have to exercise or work in the yard I do it in the morning, early, because afternoon is the rainy time, and if it doesn't rain it is too hot to be safe. All swim lessons and summer weddings are in the morning, nobody tries to schedule outdoor stuff in the afternoons if they live here. Stupid government refused to give workers heat protection protection. Kids have to do heat safety training for sports in school, learn what heat exhaustion looks like and how to hydrate safely.
I LOVE our rainy summers though. It is beautiful in its own way, the morning getting hotter then the storms, all the lightning and rain to cool it off, then the most beautiful heat lightning in the nights, whole sky flashing far away, and the bolts as well.
And I guess I'd ask how do people survive in places where it freezes for months on end? You can't grow anything in the winter, and don't the pipes freeze and burst? Is it bad for the roads and bridges? Do the homeless freeze to death? The squirrels? What about reptiles, snakes and lizards?
You can't grow anything in the winter,
Globalization! And before that, preserves. Good thing is nothing spoils when the world is your fridge/freezer
don't the pipes freeze and burst?
Water mains are buried deep enough that they don't freeze. Tap water is noticeably colder.
Is it bad for the roads and bridges?
Yes. The cold isn't, but freeze/thaw cycles are. Most asphalt roads needs to be resurfaced every 15 years or so
Do the homeless freeze to death?
Yes, but most cities have heated shelters around here where people can come when it gets too cold to sleep outdoors
The squirrels?
Northern mammals evolved to handle it
What about reptiles, snakes and lizards?
What are those?
Summer storms are the best! That feeling of anticipation as the pressure builds up, then the way the temperature drops, before the rain hits and it just washes the heat away (sometimes!)
NW Florida here. Lived in Chicago for two years. I'll take the heat thank you very much. I won't die if left outside.
Ironically, I'm Canadian and am more likely to die in the humid heat than the brutal cold 😂 granted, wet cold like you'll find in Chicago and Toronto are special kinds of hell, no thank you
Grew up in death valley (50+°C in summer)
Moved to northern Canada (-45°C in winter)
Sometimes humanity is just stubborn. You just a acclimate over time
I wonder the same thing about people who live in cold environments. I've never seen snow, and I know I won't handle it, because I can't handle single digit (Celsius) temperatures, let alone below 0...
With cold, you can layer appropriate clothing. And you can find much better appropriate clothing for purchase in the places that require it than you can find in your shops, along with advice from people who live there. Just don't follow the example of the cargo shorts at -40° boys.
I'm from hot and have visited cold, and there are not enough clothes in the world to keep me warm if it's cold enough. I just don't seem to generate enough heat to warm them. I think we are just built differently - my husband is from colder area and when he works out he has to wait to cool down before showering, I have to wrap up so I don't cool down too fast.
Cold is easy, wear more, burn stuff for heat.
Hot is hard. When I’m already fully naked and still sweating, what then? Lightly fan myself with something?
Actually yeah.
Your perspiration into dry air has an evolved cooling effect. It's the same principle used by the 'zeer' pot to keep stuff cool in high temps with no electricity (and that's a freaking magic trick, lemme tell ya).
But, now see why the rising "wet bulb" temp is an issue in the lower US and toward the equator with the rising temps: if it doesn't evaporate, you're in trouble.
Colds not too hard to deal with at all. As the other poster mentioned, when outside, the trick is layers.
Inside, it’s actually very easy to trap heat. Knowing where and how it dissipates in a house makes a huge difference, but it’s generally much easier to heat a place than cool it.
Layers are the thing I hate about the cold
Currently in Canada. Tomorrow will be like, 5F (-15C). Layers are king.
That said- normally I'm pretty good with cold temperatures, but these are the temps at which it hurts to breathe. And somehow there's still people walking around in basically nothing
Australian Northern Territory, we have hot humid days every day.
We just sweat and be miserable.
There's no getting used to it unfortunately just do your best to not get sick from working outside in it
You think you are not used to it, until you are in Europe with dry 35 C, society is collapsing around you and you are, literally, barely breaking a sweat.
Yeah when you put it that way, but i would like to be here barely breaking a sweat.
Unfortunately I think in 15 years it will be untenable to continue living this close to the equator
That's the neat part, you don't
If not for clocks and all that industrial-corporate time management shit, people in the hotter parts of the world would probably be starting work ~5am, stopping around 12-15 (hottest time of the day) for lunch + a nap, then returning to their stuff and probably going to sleep at 23
So like Spain and Italy?
I actually read an article yesterday that stated apparently siestas are are dying thing, as they result in more work and less sleep.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/spain-late-night-culture-end/index.html
Water, inside and out. Dune (the book) had a great quote about the best place for water is inside you.
Humans evolved to deal with heat, and yes, later cold, but our roots are in Africa. So many ways to cool with water, you find strategies that work. Misting is a great example. Low power and water use, works outdoors, they use it in the NFL.
I use gaiters year round, dry for cold, wet for heat. They can make a dramatic difference. Wrap an ice cube in one, put it at the base of your neck, fool your brain stem into thinking you're cooler.
Staying small is huge (heh). The square cube law is a thing. If you took my skinny hide and spread it out on top of a tall fat man, it would be fairly close. But our volume would be drastically different.
Being fat in hot climates is miserable. Had to take a shower after going to get the mail in the summer. In the mid 40s(5-8C?) and I'd be going around in a long sleeve shirt. By the time I should start to get cold, my body's warmed up or I'm in a conditioned place.
By pretending it isn't happening by being distracted by video games
AC, fans, water, and shade.
For those who live in rural yet areas, Trees and streams are your friends. We ensure at least one fruit tree and another a non edible tree is on the property depending on the size of the property. This is the cheapest way of creating shade so much so you create a micro-climate for yourself. while everyone is worried about the heat, your environ is considerably cooler during the hot season and colder in the wet rainy period.
Some do incorporate airconditioning system if the structure of the house is not well designed for natural cooling process to take place.
I just suffer through any mandatory outdoor events (mostly in silence, but sometimes wailing and profanities are included) and limit myself to activities after sunset, I always keep a bottle of water with me, and I have an hourly reminder to drink when I'm on the computer.
It's actually not that bad on the equator. Here in Malaysia out temperatures fluctuate between 26-34C during the year. The bits slightly off center are the dangerous ones, with temps in the middle east reaching 50C sometimes.
There's two feet of snow out here, so I don't know the answer, but I'm willing to try to figure it out.
I am an anomaly and love the heat. I am known for wearing jeans and a hoody in 100°f heat.
That said I get cold at like 70°f and often have to add a layer.
This but opposite... It's -35° today. Cold enough most cars won't start unless they have a block heater..
I got a slurpee for lunch. I never giving it up. You can't make me
Slowly. With loose clothing. And we ain't even tropical.
