What is “wet bulb temperature” and why does it matter?
In: 3256
When you take the temperature of the air, you use a thermometer. Traditionally a bulb thermometer 🌡️. Wet bulb means you have wet the bulb. Typically this is done by wrapping it in a cloth and wetting the cloth.
Why is this done? Because water evaporates. And when it evaporates it pulls heat from its surroundings, the thermometer, to do so, thus cooling the thermometer down. This lets us measure how hot it feels a little better, but more importantly, it lets us estimate how dangerous it is.
Why would we do that? Humans have a body temperature we regulate through various means, and the biggest one by far for staying cool is sweating. Sweat works the same way as that wet bulb thermometer, water evaporates taking heat away from us cooling is down. So what happens when the sweat isn’t enough? That’s when you start hearing wet bulb danger and such. This is saying that the bulb we use to determine temperature is so hot even when wet that it’s dangerous. This means we as humans have to take shelter or else we will overheat and die. It’s actually that serious, death is the consequence.
Latest Answers