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348

It’s Too Hot to Fly Helicopters and That’s Killing People (gizmodo.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

50 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Six motorcyclists rode into Death Valley National Park on July 6. Only five came out alive. With temperatures reaching 128 degrees Fahrenheit in California, the cyclists faced extreme heat exposure that killed one and sent another to a local hospital, according to the National Park Service.

When there’s a medical emergency like this, helicopters are typically dispatched to get people to a hospital. However, the extreme heat made it impossible for the helicopters to fly.

The next day, an emergency helicopter pilot in Stanford, California had to cancel a flight because the tarmac near a patient was too hot for him to land. As reported by The Washington Post on Wednesday, the pilot said he’d never seen temperatures this bad in his 27-year career.

Extreme heat, as many across the U.S. are experiencing this summer, can cause computer and mechanical systems on board helicopters to overheat and malfunction. But it’s not just a mechanical issue as air pressure is also a factor. Air expands when it’s hot and contracts when it’s cold. As it gets hotter outside, air pressure plummets. The air literally gets thin which means that spinning helicopter blades have less air to cut through and it’s harder for them to achieve lift. That makes it dangerous, and sometimes impossible, to fly.

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 10 months ago (4 children)

People need to start changing their behavior about this heat. I know this sounds like victim blaming. I know people shouldn't have to change their behavior because we saw global warning coming for 30 years and should have prevented this from happening. But it's happening. You can't go into Death Valley in the summer anymore. You just can't. Please don't put yourself in this position.

It's a tragedy that this death happened. We absolutely need to adapt our emergency services to this heat to try to prevent something like this from happening again. But we also need to change our behaviors so we don't end up in that position in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I know people shouldn’t have to change their behavior

The whole reason we're in this situation is because we refuse to change our behavior.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (2 children)

No, we're in this position because of a failure of leadership. Leaders can unite people behind doing things they don't want to do. It's how rationing was tolerated for years in WWII. But we have an entire political party built around telling people what they want to hear while working against their interests for the wealthy's short term gains. We could have conquered this from the top-down with a good plan and charismatic leaders supporting it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Except we wont elect leadership that will do something. The electorate has been brainwashed by decades of advertisements that have convinced them that they deserve the very best of everything. Any possible leader that would push for a strong solution to climate change wouldn't get the votes and they wouldn't get those corporate "campaign contributions".

We have two entire political parties built around telling people what they want to hear.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Leaders can unite people behind doing things

It seems to me that people want to make the world worse, because that's what people are doing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

"We" is incorrect, it is mostly the rich refusing and sabotaging change,

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is cope. I know too many people who roleplay as environmentalists, but are fully engaged in consumerism. Friends who look at me funny when I insist that we can have the same conversations over discord that we can when I drive an hour to to see them or who think that Biden's Green Deal will be enough. My primary concern for the past 30 years, more time then I've been an adult, has been to reduce my co2 output or make sure that what co2 I do output has been productive. There's a huge disconnect between myself and my supposedly like minded friends that can only be explained my a deep unwillingness to be put in any sort of discomfort. So they cope by telling themselves that they deserve this vacation that requires air travel or ignore the mountain of waste that the average movie production produces or that plastic recycling works and you can drink your Pepsi(tm) if you just put the bottle in the recycling.

If the rich are responsible for all of our problems, we're responsible for letting them be rich.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Why bother when it's far too late and nothing is going to change?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Funny how it went from not being real to being far too late. Almost like there's always a "reason" not to do anything.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What are you going to do about it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm saying your being manipulated into inaction.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

We're locked in for between 4-10C of warming at this point, with the highest probability being ~6C. Even 4 is catastrophic for global food production.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It’s the global 1% not just the ultra rich

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Exactly, a middle class American has an enormous carbon foot print compared to a middle class person in the rest of the world.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Man, it's almost like it's called Death Valley for a reason or something

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

You can still ride safely in Mild Bummer Valley.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Yeah but judging by the success of Liquid Death water, there is a certain group of people who are attracted to things with morbid names.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

And behaviour includes food, agriculture, luxuries (like hobbies), etc.

But not gamers, we are doing all the right things already.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I never knew that was a thing - crazy.

I don't understand why anyone would think taking a motorcycle ride through 130F temps is a good idea.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't even sound like a fun idea!
But I hate the heat.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

It's a terrible idea, having been a biker in socal. You'd think ventilated fabric, even a regular t-shirt with air moving on you from your forward motion would cool you..

It doesn't. You're actually adding heat (thermal energy) to your body faster than it can be removed by your sweat glands, the glands cannot output water fast enough to match the thermal energy being injected into you as the hot air passes over your body. You actually need to insulate yourself with a wind blocking jacket, at which point fuck that, stop riding, and wait a few hours.

It's a very odd sensation, but you understand it almost without explanation if you've tried it... So what were these guys thinking, ignoring their body's alarm bells?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Once the ambient temperature matches your body's temperature, it's game over for your physiological cooling system.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Not exactly. If it's not humid, you can still shed heat through sweating. Evaporation is an endothermic process. It's a physics equation involving primarily temperature and humidity, but also radiant heat and wind speed. Measuring the wet bulb globe temperature directly is usually easier.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You have to have wet bulb temperatures approaching body temperature for it to actually become lethal - you can still lose heat through perspiration if the humidity is not high enough.

Ambient temperatures of 36-37 C don't immediately mean game over.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

As long as you have enough water to keep sweating and you know, survive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Naturally. If you don't have enough water to sweat then you're in trouble at pretty low temperatures in relative terms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I heard it’s not even the core temperature but actually pretty low. When I remember correctly it’s around 34C. That’s a Temperature even we in Europe will experience in summer regularly.

AFAIK the second best thing to do when it’s really hot and you’re on a motorcycle is: Make your underwear wet with water and put on your outer layer as insulation. The water will evaporate through your clothes and prevent the body from creating too much sweat which will cause dehydration. Repeat when you get dry.

The best thing ist to not ride a motorcycle for long periods of time under these conditions. I would maybe commute for up to an hour but never ever go touring when the temperatures reach 40C. It’s just too damn hot and you need more water then petrol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

High humidity can screw your cooling too, even at lower temperatures.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

That's not true, otherwise Phoenix would be unlivable. It's close, but not quite there yet.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Six motorcyclists rode into Death Valley National Park on July 6. Only five came out alive. With temperatures reaching 128 degrees Fahrenheit in California, the cyclists...

The shorter word for motorcyclists is "bikers." "Cyclists" is a term for people that actually pedal.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago

[–] [email protected] 41 points 10 months ago (5 children)

“Six motorcyclists rode into Death Valley National Park on July 6. Only five came out alive.”

ffs gizmodo, five out of the six survived. That a bit over 83% as a survival rate.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

It's because "all but one survived" would melt their readers' brains

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

You're right about the wording, but I'd say that a four out of five survival rate when it comes to a group of motorcyclists and heat death isn't really great odds.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

My friends and I don't consider a ride successful unless at least all six of us die

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Sounds like the beginning of a riddle.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, why would you do sports in death valley?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

It’s quite a nice place for that sort of thing … in the spring when the highs are 80 or maybe 90 at the very worst…

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

and climate change deniers are probably still at it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

No probably about it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Oh no, what a tragedy, are they saying golfers in the Death Valley have to travel by car like plebs?!

It's only to get to their private jets in an airfield immediately next to it, but the humanity!!

(Not the Devils Golf Course, thats just named that, the actual thing is in the lowermost point, in 'Furnace creek')

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Death Valley is not going to be the only place where this is an issue. It could even be an issue where you live at the height of summer.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The climate change & weather models didn't change all that much in the last 70 years, they just became way more precise & can predict changes very locally (more input data and better computers).
Insurance companies use grids of a few 100km.

My region is getting periods of more serve precipitation (with hailstorm increase) & more severe droughts (as in 3 to 4 weeks at a time), bcs of that some areas could become more prone to land/mudslides.

Temperature wise both summer and winter extremes are gonna get higher, but being and more importantly straying between fronts/systems should help ease things, a bit.

But most importantly, I do not have a habit of traveling by helicopters, tho medical transports will suffer, yes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

tho medical transports will suffer, yes.

Putting that at the end like it's an afterthought when it's one of the biggest problems is ridiculous. Someone already died because of this problem. It's going to continue to be a problem where people will die because of that. I'm not sure why you think that isn't a big deal.

Also, I grew up in the state I'm living in now after not living here for a decade. The difference in summer heat is not minor. We never used to have summers this hot for this long when I was a kid. We had a week last month where the temperature was above 95 every day. Also true for this week. Temperatures in the 90s in June were enough news to make the paper beyond the weather section when I was a kid.

The sun's only been up for an hour and it's already 76 degrees. Again, that is not even close to normal when I was growing up. So telling me that it hasn't changed all that much in the last 70 years when I've experienced that change myself over less than 50 is not especially convincing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

... medical transports are one of the biggest problems of climate change?

And what afterthought? It's in the title of the main post.

Also, who alive for a few decades didn't notice climate change first hand?

Edit:
Wait, did you not get the sarcasm in my golf course post?
I do not care about golf & golf courses should not exists at all, ever.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No, medical transports are one of the biggest problems of helicopters not being able to fly due to climate change, something you mentioned at the very end.

And if the rest of your post wasn't about "it won't be too hot for a helicopter most of the time," I'm not sure what the point was.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

That was not what I was trying to say at all. Where did you get that impression?

I was replying directly to:

It could even be an issue where you live at the height of summer.

I was just replying what is and will be happening hereb locally, since you kinda asked/brought up the possibility.
(And yes, during severe storms helicopters can't fly either)

But high temperatures are not the worst of climate change, not even close - it's the biohabitat loss & all the hydro changes (precipitation, reservoirs, running water, ice and snow coverage, etc).

A lot more people will die (are dying) bcs of lack of clan water (that there was once in abundance), bcs of the diminished agricultural production in their region, and bcs of wars resulting in all those people moving en masse to better regions for pure survival (and wealthy nations will block their entry by force).

Ofc its horrible when someone can't get to the hospital in a timely manner, but it's a lot worse if there isn't a hospital to go to.

And no, I wasn't sure why would you even bring it up in such a way:

Death Valley is not going to be the only place where this is an issue

I am aware of climate change. I am aware it's not happening just is one valley. Why would I think that?