I got a comment asking if dry heat was any more comfortable than heat with humidity. I suppose it is, but I can't tell the difference. In 1976 I trained for two months in the southwest US desert before deploying to Germany. I had one shower during that two months--July and August--and it was hot. It was a dry heat, but I felt very hot in a 56-ton metal container (an M60A1 tank) and after two months, I smelled like I had been hot for two months.
Yes, it is dry heat here, but two days ago when it was 108 degrees on the range (a temp update from range control) I was HOT. I suppose it makes some difference that we are in dry heat, but it does not seem to matter much with 50 pounds of gear on. It's just hot. With summer coming I am expecting a lot more dry heat in my future. I will be just plain hot.
My computer doesn't like dry heat either. It has been shutting off after an hour or less when I am outside trying to get some bandwidth near the signal towers. It turns out it can't cool itself with dry 100-degree air. So my Mac and I think alike.
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ReplyDeleteHi: You have now moved to my "boots on the ground" folder from guys getting ready and guys coming back. Enjoy your stuff. I'm older too and doing lots of stuff that should much better be left to young'uns. Take care and stay cool as you can. Lorraine
ReplyDeleteI'm remembering this trip my family took to the American southwest probably 10 years ago. It was during the summertime, and it was 121 degrees at the Hoover Dam. My father had been telling us the whole time that it was only a dry heat, but there's a threshold you cross somewhere when it doesn't matter if it's a dry heat or a humid heat-- it's still TOO HOT!
ReplyDeleteThoroughly enjoying your reports Neil, you guys are doing a great job for us all. Best wishes and take care.
ReplyDeleteThe US Military fetish with over-drinking is most interesting. The introduction of new drinking guidelines in the US Military after about 1996 produced a rash of hospitalizations and deaths from water-intoxication (hyponatremia). These drinking guidelines were revised in about 1999 with a reduction in cases of water-intoxication. Fort Benning was the worst affected training facility presumably because the rules were followed more strictly there. The sadness is that there is no scientific evidence that drinking can prevent "heat illness" in military personnel. The "evidence" for this myth comes from a concerted effort by the sports drink industry especially in the US to insure that everyone drinks a great deal whenever they exercise or even when like you they are out of doors in the heat and not even exercising vigorously. The power of the mythology is astonishing. Humans evolved over the past 2 million years specifically to be able to run long distances in dry heat (similar to that you are experiencing in Iraq) without drinking very much. Before the evolution of the sports drink industry in the 1970's that is the way that humans used to exercise and I suspect the same applied to the US Military. If that was how the Second World War was won, what has happened since to the fittest and the best of the US males?
ReplyDeletePosted by Prof Tim Noakes OMS, MD, DSc
Cape Town, South Africa