how people in extremely cold places can survive? For example, Oymyakon in Siberia regularly gets below – 55°c / – 67°f, and I’m sure we’ve all seen those videos of people throwing boiling water into the air where it freezes instantly. How does blood not freeze? How are mucous membranes and eyeballs not frozen within seconds? How does anybody pee without it instantly freezing?
Obviously people live in heated housing, but how can people go outside/ pee outside without injury? I’ve wondered about this for years, and even more so when I see pictures of animals seemingly frozen in place mid-movement.
Thank you
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Boiling water freezing when thrown to air doesn’t take much. You can do this around -10 to -20. The trick is to thrown it in to air making it small mist where it cools quickly because small droplet of water has little volume and energy overall.
But here is the thing, these extreme colds don’t really bite unless it is windy. Just like we Finns spend time in +80 to +100 saunas, you don’t feel the heat without steam. You can stick your hand in to liquid nitrogen and you’ll be fine for a moment because the boiling gas causes insulation layer. Air is a good insulator for heat especially when it stands still.
So how do you pee in cold? With your back against the wind or shielded from the wind.
Eyes feeezing? The sockets actually create air cushion and with a fuzzy hood or face covering. Now if you pull your brow down you can actually get your eyebrows to shield your eyes.
Noses? Well noses have lots of bloodflow and surface area to heat up the air that comes in. Our noses are really good at this.
But those extreme cold areas in siberians actually have little wind which is why cool down so much they are in a depression or a valley where the air cools and stands still. Alternatively During summer they suffer from high humidity and heat.
But living in a place where you get -30 at least once a winter, it is something you get used to. After like -15 you really don’t notice the difference. I been at the shipyard with -25 and windy and that is something different; being at deck 18 no shield from wind you’ll freeze your ass off regardless of your gear.
But wear layers, fuzzy face coverings and mind the wind. You get used to it. The locals in these extreme areas; Siberians, Sami, Mongols, Turkic, Ainu, they are adapted to it physically.
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