Uncle Peter made this incredible statement:
"This is a fact. -20C air does not make you cold, . You might shiver if you were naked, but the shivering will stop you getting any colder".
To me, it sounds like he's talking absolute bullshit and he should be sent to the funny farm, but is there an element of truth in what he said?....Anyone know?
He is talking rubbish as usual. That is why I have him in my kill file.
The body does shiver for a while to keep warm, but there are limits, and that seems to be governed by your core temperature dropping by nearly 2 degrees. Of course prolonged cold make the body keep the blood inside the bodies main organs, shutting circulation off to extremities. if this goes on too long tissue dies, ie frostbbite etc.
So its all in the timing and the core temperature. Of course if your clothing starts to get wet as well and there is a wind, then you have far less time to do something about it. Brian
A mate of mine died from hypothermia, fully clothed, inside his flat in the month of May. He was incredibly drunk though
No.
You could always get him to prove it, as in try it post a vid. to youtube. They say that as you approach Hyperthermia you start to feel warm/hot and remove your cloths. Of course -20C air doesn't make you cold unless you're actually exposed to it. :)
:-)
My fingers don't mind the cold, they in fact go RED to increase blood to them to prevent frostbite.
My comment to Bod which has been missed out completely in this thread was that air is nowhere near as cooling as water. The conversation was originally about dry air at -20C, which I said was nothing like even cool water for cooling you down.
I've swum in a lake at 0C for 2 hours. Just made me shiver hard when I got out for half an hour.
How can that be!? Your blood reduces flow to your extremities when very cold, to protect your vital organs.
No, you have previously stated that anyone could sleep out in snow all night when the temperature was minus 20 and only wearing jeans and a tee shirt. I can produce the email where you said that, if you wish.
Yes, and? How does that contradict what I just said? That situation does not involve being in water.
As for the jeans and tshirt, nobody can get cold when dressed. Jeans and tshirt are quite warm clothes.
Quite shivering (proper shivering not what most people think of as shivering) is the bodies attempt at trying to maintain your core temperature. It might be able to depending on the rate of heat loss but naked in, even still, -20 C air you won't be able to generate enough heat and your core temp will drop, you'll stop shivering, you may even feel quite warm (so much so that people falling into hypothermia may take their clothes off), then you drift off to sleep...
directly
Keep barefoot in that snow for a few hours and see what happens. What temperature was that snow at? Fresh dry powder snow can be very cold, think in the terms of -40 C ...
And what temperature was the water?
Water temp 0.3 C Exhaustion/unconsious < 15 mins, survival < 45 mins.
TBH rather too consistent numbers for my liking of web sources but fit with memory from other sources.
You'd have to be an utter wimp with a dose of the flu, or 95 years old to not be able to create enough heat for that, especially as you've reduced blood flow to the surface of your skin (on your entire body), and your brown fat cells are creating heat aswell.
It was all day, and on a few occasions it was snowing and quite windy. And I wasn't wearing a shirt either. You don't get -40C snow in the UK. In fact wet slushy snow is colder, as the water contacts your whole foot and stays there. Frozen snow conducts less heat away.
and you will die, shivering just means you might last a little longer.
I would have thought everyone's does but I don;t think that pre3vents frost bite, plenty of atric explorers have experience frost bit and plenty choose top wear gloves.
I said above, 0C. There was ice floating on the surface. Last time I looked at my thermometer watch in those conditions, it read about 0.3.
I've seen times quoted from 4 minutes to 15 minutes for death, and this site says 2 hours:
I've swum in 0C for 2 hours as I said, and I was neither unconscious or dead. In fact afterwards I ate a sandwich then jogged home across the hills.
Well you would wouldn't you? HypER-something means too much, over. HyPO means too little, or under.
Hence a hypodermic syringe is for use under the skin (dermis). Hyperactive is very active, hyperglycaemic is high blood sugar, hypoglycaemia is low blood sugar. They're opposite extremes.
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