someone is being wrong on the tv

[arduinna]

I am idly watching an old documentary show that involves some people who had to ditch into the North Sea, and the narrator has just earnestly and intently explained that "for a person in the water, hypothermia can begin when the temperatures of air and water added together is below 50 degrees Centigrade."

...

This is not an American show, and the narrator is definitely not American. So you would think he would have noticed how nonsensical that is.

(He does go on to say, quite accurately, that in the North Sea in winter, the temperature is far below that. I would be willing to go even further and say that the temperature of the North Sea is far below 122F even in the hottest days of summer.)

(hi!)

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

The stupid!

Also, great to see you!!!

[arduinna]

Oh, that icon makes me so happy <3

[ratcreature]

The North Sea near the coasts is around 4°C right now, but in warm winters it can get warmer, and in summer it reaching around 18°C (so around 64°F?) is fairly normal, sometimes 20°C even. But 20°C water still doesn't feel warm, and I assume you can get hypothermia if you stay in for a long time or something and aren't trained in cold water swimming?

I mean, obviously psome eople swim in very cold water and people can train to withstand stuff to some degree, but for bathing in the sea as a normal person, I've been told the rule of thumb that without protective gear you can stay only as many minutes as the water is in Celsius, or you'll get too cold, even if the water is at summer temperatures.

[arduinna]

Yep, you can get hypothermia in temps much warmer than you'd think. But even so I wouldn't have blinked if they'd said "50 degrees Fahrenheit", since that's a pretty standard -- okay, the only word that fits there is metric, heh. I remember being told something similar as a kid.

But 50 C - yikes!

the rule of thumb that without protective gear you can stay only as many minutes as the water is in Celsius, or you'll get too cold, even if the water is at summer temperatures.

Oh, I am totally using that, thanks! Much better than "if your lips start turning blue, get out of the water". (Although if your lips start turning blue, do get out of the water...)

[ratcreature]

With blue lips they stayed Fahrenheit water temperature minutes long...

[klia]

I've never been able to convert celsius to fahrenheit in my head, but always remember the lyrics in Beds Are Burning, "The the western desert lives and breathes in 45 degrees," so even I'd know that was... nonsensical. Mistakes like that make you go hmmm about the whole production.

I also haven't seen or heard it called centigrade for decades.

(Hi!)

[dorinda]

Just had to say HI to your icon! <3____<3

[klia]

I love and miss those two, and am still sad our vid kind of fell off a cliff. ;__;

I love your icon, too!

[arduinna]

I basically have "20-25C is 70s" carved in stone in my brain so I at least have a clue if I need a coat. It falls apart with the single digits, though, which always read "zomg freezing cold" to me, even though technically they just mean "yeah, kinda chilly".

And yeah, the "centigrade" was just weird all around - but the show is literally 20 years old, so at least it fits!

[klia]

As a kid, I swam in Lake Michigan (in a 2-pc bathing suit) quite a bit, and it's pretty much always cold, and the lakefront chilly, so I guess I should consider myself lucky I never got hypothermic?

[dorinda]

Toasty!! Hypothermia obviously begins the moment you step into the hot tub.

[arduinna]

See below for sholio and shoshanna's responses! I just managed to completely misunderstand what was being said (because as I told sholio, I clearly really don't grok celsius except in some sort of "... yes, those are numbers, and they mean something..." kind of way.)

All of this is great support for "let's get you out of those wet things!", though. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[marthawells]

Hi!!

[arduinna]

❤

[sholio]

Hi!! :D

This actually is not wrong, it sounds like it's the Celsius equivalent of the 120 degree rule - if water temp + air temp is 120 degrees or less, you are at risk of hypothermia if you swim without a wetsuit. It's not so much a rule per se as a reminder that you can get hypothermic at *much* warmer temperatures than most people realize because water robs you of body heat so fast. So, say, if the water is 40 degrees and the air is 70 degrees, this adds up to 110 degrees and is unsafe even if the air feels warm enough to go swimming.

[arduinna]

Aha! This is good to know - first, that I really, really don't grok celsius in any sort of intuitive way, and second that this is of course exactly what the narrator was saying with "air and water temp combined" but again with the not grokking at all what the underlying numbers would be. But it makes perfect sense to me in fahrenheit.

Also, I'm cracking up at your example; when I was younger it wasn't unheard of for me to take a dip in the New England ocean on a hot May day, but then I went to the Caribbean on vacation and now I am ruined for life. Heh. Water should be warrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm.

Thanks!

[the_shoshanna]

Hi hi!

A kayaker friend gave us a similar rule last summer; I think it was 120F, as sholio says, but I can't remember for sure.

The C/F conversion mnemonics I use all the time are 16C = 61F and 28C = 82F (memorable because they're mirror images) and 22C= 72F (memorable because they both end in 2). Also -40C = -40F, memorable because it's horrifying, and also it was relevant last week, aiee.

[arduinna]

It's a little horrifying that it makes so much more sense to me in F, but I'm very glad to have the explanations of what I was missing!

Those are great mnemonics, and I am swiping them forthwith.

No kidding on the -40 C/F last week, ugh. Hope you guys stayed warm! We never lost power, thank god, and just kept the heat cranking nonstop. (It's so unfair, too - it was so freaking cold but not for long enough to kill off the ticks, which are going to be insane this year because so much of the winter has been warm. If I can't go out for more than 10 minutes without risking frostbite, ticks should keel over after so many hours!)

[the_shoshanna]

Ticks have absolutely no right to be so damn indestructible! We stayed cozy even though we were out and about looking at houses -- the incredibly skanky motel we were staying in lost power momentarily several times, and our hybrid car put a warning up that Something Ominously Unspecified Was Wrong, but the next day, after sitting a while in the sun, it was fine again. Glad you were able to stay warm!

[sholio]

Also -40C = -40F, memorable because it's horrifying, and also it was relevant last week.

*cries in Alaska*

(Although I don't think we've actually had -40 this year at all, in any temperature measurement; what is climate change even.)

[the_shoshanna]

I would send you all our extreme cold if I could!

[thevetia]

One can get hypothermia in 80F+ degree water if you stay in it long enough, wetsuit notwithstanding. (Don't ask how I know.) The ocean is a Great Big Heat Sink, and you are a very small heat source.

(And Hi!)

[dorinda]

Well now I simply LONG to ask how you know!

[kass]

fhalskjdfhdaskljfhalsdjkf

(hi!)