Summers are getting longer and more intense, encroaching on winter and extending long into the fall.Īlthough late summer can bring more extreme temperatures, these early heat waves take a particularly dangerous toll. A summer athlete might be familiar with this process, called acclimatization: The key is taking it slow, all while hydrating and taking breaks to cool down.Ĭlimate change is making a safe, slow adjustment to heat much harder by upending what we’d typically expect as seasons change. We’re at our best when the heat doesn’t catch us off guard. The body slows down its metabolic rate and heart rate for a lower core temperature, basically consuming less oxygen.īut it takes weeks of consistent exposure to heat to build up all this tolerance. There’s more sweat, and it’s diluted more to reduce electrolyte loss (a key problem in dehydration). To keep the internal organs cool, blood flows to the skin at a higher rate. People are worse off in early-season heat waves, and death tolls higher, when the body hasn’t had a chance to adapt to hotter weather.Ī body adjusted to the heat knows how to sweat. The event is not just dangerous for its extremes it’s dangerous for its timing. High humidity makes the air feel even hotter, pushing the heat indices in some areas to a record-breaking 120 degrees. Millions of people in Texas and across the south are under heat advisories from the National Weather Service this past week. The longer Texas’s heat wave extends, the worse the toll from the prolonged, triple-digit temperatures.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |