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The wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) is a measure of environmental heat as it affects humans. Unlike a simple temperature measurement, WBGT accounts for all four major environmental heat factors: air temperature, humidity, radiant heat (from sunlight or sources such as furnaces), and air movement (wind or ventilation). [ 1 ]
The wet-bulb temperature is the lowest temperature that may be achieved by evaporative cooling of a water-wetted, ventilated surface.. By contrast, the dew point is the temperature to which the ambient air must be cooled to reach 100% relative humidity assuming there is no further evaporation into the air; it is the temperature where condensation (dew) and clouds would form.
A sustained wet-bulb temperature of about 35 °C (95 °F) can be fatal to healthy people; at this temperature our bodies switch from shedding heat to the environment, to gaining heat from it. [10] Thus a wet bulb temperature of 35 °C (95 °F) is the threshold beyond which the body is no longer able to adequately cool itself.
As the planet continues to get hotter, humans are at greater risk for heat-related illness and death but an index aims to avoid such.
Plot of humidex depending on temperature and relative humidity. The humidex (short for humidity index) is an index number used by Canadian meteorologists to describe how hot the weather feels to the average person, by combining the effect of heat and humidity.
The humidity of an air and water vapor mixture is determined through the use of psychrometric charts if both the dry bulb temperature (T) and the wet bulb temperature (T w) of the mixture are known. These quantities are readily estimated by using a sling psychrometer.
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Metric (SI): Using a dry bulb of 25 °C and a wet bulb of 20 °C, read the relative humidity at approximately 63.5%. U.S/Imperial (IP): Using a dry bulb of 77 °F and a wet bulb of 68 °F, read the relative humidity at approximately 63.5%. In this example the humidity ratio is 0.0126 kg water per kg dry air.