![\"Professor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/21e2800ac90df142f158c093739e485bc73f313b.jpg\")
Professor Ollie Jay <\/p>\nWhat heat does to your body <\/p>\n
After the first experiment, Jay explains to me what I just went
\n through.<\/p>\n
“So whenever people think about hot weather, they always talk about
\n the temperature,” he says.<\/p>\n
“There’s two issues with that. First of all, most people don’t
\n realise that the temperature is measured in the shade.<\/p>\n
“So if you’re in direct solar radiation, the amount of heat stress
\n you’re exposed to is much greater as it will stress your body out a
\n lot more.”<\/p>\n
That explains the heat lamps. And, according to Jay, the other
\n important variable is the humidity.<\/p>\n
“Humidity is the amount of water vapour that’s in the air. And the
\n reason that’s important is that the only way in which your body can
\n physiologically keep cool is that you produce sweat.<\/p>\n
“But it’s not production of sweat that cools you down. It’s the
\n evaporation of sweat and it’s the humidity in the air that prevents
\n that sweat from evaporating, even though the ambient temperature
\n might be the same.”<\/p>\n
So when high humidity goes along with extreme temperatures, your
\n body can no longer cool itself down, and the heat becomes deadly.<\/p>\n
This is why in the next experiment I’m going to experience
\n conditions at the same temperature as the first experiment, but with
\n a much higher humidity of 36%.<\/p>\n
Professor Ollie Jay <\/p>\n
Even though 36% relative humidity doesn’t sound high, at 43C that
\n means a lot of moisture because warmer air can hold more water. When
\n it’s this hot, sweating isn’t going to help me stay cool very much.<\/p>\n
Another way to think about it is the “feels like” temperature that
\n weather forecasts sometimes tell us about. Under the conditions I am
\n experiencing, the “feels like” temperature is over 49C or 120F.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What heat does to your body After the first experiment, Jay explains to me what I just went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-489965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}