And the Heat Goes On
We all know that summer goes as a season until the Autumnal Equinox, one of the two times in the year when the sun’s path crosses directly over the equator and the length of the day is equal to the length of the night (approximately), which this year happens to fall smack dab in between September 22nd and 23rd. And we know from experience here in the Northern Hemisphere that it stays relatively warm in September until that equinox. Then, and only then does it generally start to cool down as the deciduous leaves on the trees turn vibrant colors and things like frost come to mind (not that we get too much of that here in San Diego). But ask a school kid when summer ends and they are likely to tell you Labor Day. It’s when they have just started or are about to start heading back to school and parents can let out a sigh of relief. Beach goers have their final bonfires and we all start counting down the days until the next holiday sequence, which begins more or less with Halloween and gets us through Thanksgiving and the run-up to Christmas/Chanukah and New Years. I’m not sure that we wish away any part of the year, but summer is certainly one that we try to cling to as long as possible. In the Northeast that is understandable because the end of summer does herald the advent of frost and weather that has us more indoors than outdoors. But I suspect that may be a changing cultural pattern thanks to none other than Climate Change (despite Vivek Ramaswamy’s most recent declaration that its a hoax).
I have always felt that the big difference between hot and cold is that we humans seem better able to grapple with severe cold than we can with severe heat. If you assume that average rom temperature for a human is 70 degrees Fahrenheit (there is some give and take with that culturally, but not much), it takes 28.6 more degrees to get us up to just our natural body temperature, but our rather delicate organisms cannot stand heat of much more than 108 degrees on a sustained basis. I always think about the Ad Council piece with the frying egg saying, “here is your brain, and here is your brain on drugs”. We know the brain is what they call an irreversible colloid, which, like an egg, once peptized by heat to turn from a gel to a sol, is irresistibly changed. That has stuck with me over the years as I imagine on a hot day over 108 degrees, out brains starting to cook and go irreversibly into oblivion. Obviously that does not happen instantaneously and its not like all of Phoenix, which spent 31 consecutive days over 110 degrees, went coo coo that month, but we can all agree that it was a pretty dangerous and certainly uncomfortable situation. situation. But if you take 40 degrees off of the normal room temperature, you are just below the freezing mark at 30 degrees. I would submit as someone who skied actively for many years and lived much of his life in the Northeast, that our ability to deal with extreme cold is far greater than with extreme heat. As they say, you can put on an extra sweater or partner in the cold, but you can’t exactly take off your skin in the heat.
We are warm blooded creatures that nature has given the ability to regulate our own internal temperatures as needed to survive where cold-blooded things like reptiles and fish have a much more limited range of survivability. But all that evolution still only give us a fairly limited range nonetheless. NASA says humans can exist between 39 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, a range of only 56 degrees. NASA further says that humans cannot exist in temperatures exceeding 95 degrees for more than 6 hours. That is pretty draconian. Earth’s temperature range is between -128 and 134, but the average is about 60 degrees. This confirms that we are more well suited for extreme cold rather than extreme heat. Since places like the Moon and Mars have a considerably wider range of temperature over a much broader swath of their territory. The thing is that their relative atmosphere’s or lack thereof make Mars skew to the cooler and the Moon skew to the warmer. It seems that all the recent South Pole activity on the Moon notwithstanding, Elon Musk’s vision of colonizing Mars seems to be more likely just from a temperature bear ability standard.
Back here on earth, we are currently warming at a rate of about ⅓ of a degree Fahrenheit per year, which does not sound like a lot, but is a breakneck pace for planetary survival purposes. Given that a further increase in global average temperature of 1.5 – 2.0 degrees (sounds like about less than 10 years to me) will damage the planet’s delicate balance of biomass like in the rain forests and melt the ice caps so that sea level rises meaningfully and quickly, being too hot may be the least of our collective problems. Nonetheless, what will cause up to Lotz on any given day is likely to be heat stroke when our air conditioning breaks down. I spend a ton of money this summer making sure I got out ahead of my hvac issues so that would not happen at an inconvenient moment, but I’m sure I have at best put a bandaid on that potential boo-boo. Choosing to live somewhere like San Diego feels more like a good choice right now rather than a bad one. My friend who lives in a San Francisco high rise without air conditioning or my friend who lives in Phoenix seem like much more of risky propositions than anything we face. I even think New York City may face more heat-related issues than we do. Average high temperatures in San Diego range from 57-75 recorded over 150 years. In 2023 we have averaged 63 degrees so far, which makes sense since we had a rather cool and wet first half of th year. Any way you look at it, it still feels OK to me (I am sitting in my hot tub at the moment in 90 degree water on a day when the air temperature is a warm 89 degrees for a late August day).
We will be leaving 90 degree weather here next week to go back to the Hudson Valley where the highs will be about 83 and I am frankly worried about getting sweaty and hot in all that humidity versus the relatively dry heat we get here. Average September highs will be around 77, dropping to 74 in October and down to 70 in November. I know that this year has been much different than normal for the area, but I feel reasonably confident in saying that our averages will be close to those numbers and that it will stay pleasantly warm, but not really hot through much of the fall season as we march towards the Southern Solstice in December when we hit the shortest daylight day of the year. By then the average high temperature will be all the way down to 68 degrees and I may even put away my short pants.
I guess this is a very long and drawn out way for me to say that I like the weather here in San Diego. It suits me. It is warm, but not hot, cool but not cold. It varies a bit, but not too much. And for us warm blooded creatures with the limited tolerance range for habitability, it feels just right to me. I suspected that before we moved here, but now that I’m living it in real time and Climate Change is upon us (sorry, Vivek, it ain’t no hoax), I guess I’m ere to say that I’m glad that the heat goes on.,,,but not too much.