– what is a wet bulb temperature and why is it dangerous?
In: Biology
Wet bulb temperature is the temperature you read when your thermometer is covered in a wet rag.
Now you might be thing…why? Great question!
That’s because this allows us to measure humidity by comparing it to a “normal” thermometer that isn’t covered in a wet rag. Because the drier the air the lower the wet bulb will read, relative to the normal thermometer. That’s because the wet rag is actually like sweat! Sweat cools us off as it evaporates, and it evaporates faster the drier the air which means more cooling.
Not sure if you have ever heard the term “it’s not the heat it’s the humidity” or noticed that a hot day that’s muggy out feels *way* worse than a hot day that’s dry out but it’s the same principle here.
Not sure why you think it’s dangerous, though. It’s not. It’s just another way of measuring temperature. We do tend to talk about it when it’s both really hot AND really humid out, but that’s not because wet bulb temperature is dangerous. That’s because it’s really hot and muggy out.
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