• sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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    3 months ago

    Because we are imperfect animals with imperfect survival mechanisms, and sometimes water is actually hot enough to heat your body above what it considers to be its threshold for thermostatic equillibrium.

    Problem: Body Temp Too Hot.

    Solution: Emit Salt Water Tears from basically all of your skin so that the heat can transfer into Salty Tears and then evaporate. Works very well in low humidity situations.

    But also problem: Humidity and temperature in ambient environment is so high that evaporation either does not work at all or is ineffective at dissipating internal body temp to the outside environment.

    Same Solution: Keep sweating even though it doesn’t work, enjoy heat exhaustion/stroke.

    This is the whole problem of a ‘wet bulb’ temperature causing mass heat exhaustion, stroke or death: If the humidity and temperature are high enough, long enough, its literally impossible for a human body to naturally cool down.

    • Sundial@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      I know about the risks of high humidity. Does the same risk apply when it’s running water that’s continually changing? How hot does it have to be where you’re actually sweating while standing underneath a shower.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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        3 months ago

        Yes, whether or not you are immersed in still, motionless water, being showered by a … shower, or rainfall, or hose, being swept along by a river or undertow, or covered in snow…

        The primary thing that triggers a human response to sweat is just your internal body temperature.

        It doesn’t matter how or what is transmitting heat to you, so long as your body is generally above a certain temperature threshold, you will sweat. Go below a certain general threshold and you will begin to shiver.

        Exactly what those temperature thresholds are vary from person to person, based on your genetics, the climate you are used to living in, what kind of fitness level you have, whether or not you are currently sick and fighting off an infection… etc.

        Generally speaking, I am seeing that humans begin to sweat when their immediate surroundings are 32C or about 90F, but again, different kinds of people used to different environments will have somewhat different thresholds.

        https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/jappl.1966.21.3.967

        So, perhaps thats a rough approximation of how hot the water of shower or bathtub would have to be for a roughly average person to begin sweating while bathing.