WET BULB TEMPERATURE

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The deaths of 11 people in Mumbai due to heatstroke, while they were attending a government meeting in an open space, is possibly the largest heatwave-related death toll from a single event.

Key details:

According to the IMD, heatwave conditions are currently prevailing in some areas of Gangetic West Bengal, coastal Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.

What is wet bulb temperature?

• The combination of high temperature and high humidity, referred to as the “wet bulb temperature”, is what makes heatwaves deadly.
• Wet-bulb temperature (WBT) combines dry air temperature with humidity in essence, it is a measure of heat-stress conditions on humans.
• The term comes from how it is measured.
• If you slide a wet cloth over the bulb of a thermometer, the evaporating water from the cloth will cool the thermometer down.
• This lower temperature is the WBT, which cannot go above the dry temperature.
• If humidity in the surrounding air is high, less evaporation will occur, so the WBT will be closer to the dry temperature.

Significance of humidity:

• Humidity is a critical factor in heat exposure because high humidity does not allow sweat to evaporate off the surface of the skin, the primary way in which humans lose the heat generated within the body.
• The cooling effect that the evaporating sweat produces is essential in maintaining a stable body temperature.
• The resilience of people to heatwaves varies with age and depends on underlying health conditions.

SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB