Re: How is your weather ?
- From: Islander <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:33:40 -0700
Gary wrote:
On Mon, 06 Aug 2007 10:23:58 -0400, emily2@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:In agriculture, it is pretty well understood that red fabric or plastic absorbs the longer wavelengths of light better than colors at the violet end of the spectrum. Since brown contains complementary colors at opposite ends of the spectrum, it will absorb more heat than blue or violet, but less than red or orange.
On Mon, 06 Aug 2007 07:54:16 -0400, Gary <nope@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Black is not a color. Black is the *absence* of color. White is notI'd pick a medium brown, a color found in some Hispanics, some blacks
a color. White is the whole *spectrum* of colors."
I think a nice light brown is the most attractive skin color for us
humans. Which is what I am .... on my arms and face.
and some (India) Indians.
The other day, while floating around in the pool in the 90+
temperature, I thought about how awful it must have been to have to
pick cotton in that kind of weather all day long, which led me to
another thought -- black absorbs heat more than white does, so do
black people get hotter than white people? I don't suppose there's
any way to find out, though.
I've wondered about that myself. I've always been told that dark
skin is helpful in hot climes. But, as you say, black is suppose to
absorb heat, whereas white is suppose to reflect it away. But you go
out in the sun with plain white skin and it will soon turn red. If
black skin absorbs more heat than white, I don't see how they pick
cotton or anything else.
As an aside, I am more conscious of heat than most retirees. My
grandfather died in this same town in 1947 at age 58 from a heat
stroke.
A second factor is reflectivity. Black has very low reflectivity while white has very high reflectivity. Hence, darker colors will absorb more heat than lighter colors.
Based on this, the question of why desert Arabs wear black clothing rather that white is totally puzzling. Note that Arabs in the cities wear white.
In any case, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun!
As for me, I cannot take the heat and humidity any more. Right now it is 56 degrees here at 9:30a. The humidity is pretty high at 89%, but that is just because the morning fog has not yet burned off. It will be down to a more normal 60% by mid day. We had a bit of warm weather about a month ago, but are now back to comfortable days and nights that are cool enough to need a blanket.
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