From wikipedia:
Now, the current model:
External Quote:
In November 2001 Canada, U.S. and U.K. implemented a new wind chill index developed by scientists and medical experts on the Joint Action Group for Temperature Indices (JAG/TI).
[5][6][7] It is determined by iterating a model of skin temperature under various wind speeds and temperatures using standard engineering correlations of wind speed and heat transfer rate. Heat transfer was calculated for a bare face in wind, facing the wind, while walking into it at 1.4 metres per second (3.1 mph). The model corrects the officially measured wind speed to the wind speed at face height, assuming the person is in an open field.
[8] The results of this model may be approximated, to within one degree, from the following formula:
Surface heat transfer to a moving fluid is an incredibly well documented physical phenomena. It's the principle behind a number of technologies, from those palm frond fans in movies about ancient civilizations to the pressurized liquid cooling system that keeps your car from melting on the drive to work. Wind on faces is well understood enough that a scientist can even set an egg timer and tell you when you'll get frostbite to an accuracy of about +/- 5 minutes. The grid usually used for wind chill isn't quite that accurate, because it's an average and doesn't control for hair coverage or skin color, but controlling for those things is possible.
And not controlling for unknowns is pretty much the whole point.
The wind chill index and heat index (those "feels like" temperatures TV meteorologists like) don't control for a handful of values, because it's really hard to print a four dimensional chart on a two dimensional piece of paper. Strictly speaking, when applying them to local measurements, you're supposed to control for those things, but since few meteorologists provide street-by-street grids (and at that resolution wind itself is a bigger variable) unless you're walking around with a set of weather instruments and a graphing calculator, you're not going to be improving on the fuzzy numbers the weather man gives you.
After all, this is no more fuzzy than any of the other numbers meteorologists provide the public - on the scale that wind chill varies from the forecast, so does temperature and precipitation, and I can't for the life of me find any pseudointellectuals saying inches and degrees are bunk measurements.
Now, specifically to the OP's link: He repeatedly does THIS:
External Quote:
The gaudy negative numbers do more than describe the weather; they try to tell us how we experience it. The reporting of wind chill carries with it a paternalistic impulse to explain not just how cold it is, but how cold we'll feel. Well, I've been out in the cold every day this week, and I know exactly what it's like. If wind chill can tell me only what I've already experienced—my cell phone hand too numb to dial a number, my moustache freezing on my face—then we should just get rid of it altogether.
This is just five different kinds of stupid at once. Not only does it acknowledge that wind chill is a
very real and meaningful thing, but it reduces the reasons for getting rid of it two two equally stupid ones:
1. That meteorologists are supposed to clinically and scientifically describe the weather and not provide context for people who don't have a copy of Introduction to Mid-Latitude Dynamic Meteorology, Fourth Edition handy.
2. "I already know how cold it feels, stop telling me and making me feel bad."
Reason 1 is suggesting meteorologists stop doing their *job*, because they exist to provide context and planning assistance for people about to face the weather, and reason 2 is just... I'm not even sure what that is, but it's really stupid. He knows how cold it is and doesn't want to be told? Now, he clearly went out unprepared and unknowing since he already knew how cold it was before the news report. However, had he watched the morning news, he could worn touch screen gloves with a windproof layer to them. He COULD have known that BEFORE he went out. Because he didn't, he assumes nobody did, and everybody found out after the fact how cold they already felt.
This is a common fallacy, assuming everyone else acts exactly like you. And when you're not acting with rational diligence regarding your own health, that's a dangerous assumption to make.
Also, he should know it's pretty easy to keep your mustache from freezing - in through the nose, out through the mouth. You're losing body heat every time you breathe, but you can put it to use on its way out. If it does get a little frosty, a deep, slow breath, with your mouth just open a slit and your lower jaw pushed out so the hair touches your lower lip. Note all this can be a bad idea in a cold weather survival situation, but I'm assuming from his list of grievances the worst survival situation the author has faced was not being able to get the Grubhub app to recognize his location.
The recalibration he mentions (based on the extent of the change) wasn't the 2001 recalibration (which was based on the actual heat transfer rate between skin to moving air, rather than water to moving air like the original index) but a change made in the 60's. For a few years in the 60's, they used something called the Wind Chill Equivalent Temperature, which gave the equivalent air temperature of completely stationary air. This gave pretty absurdly exaggerated numbers because stationary air doesn't happen, and didn't last long before they recalibrated it around a low wind speed, causing dramatic changes in reported equivalent temperature. The change in 2001 was far less dramatic. His link is broken, of course).
External Quote:
a below-32 wind chill
can't freeze our pipes or car radiators by itself, either.
No, because neither one is standing out on the sidewalk exposed. Your pipes are inside your house completely sheltered from wind, and your radiator is inside the engine compartment not completely sheltered, but with no direct path for the wind to hit it full speed. It's also not full of water, unless you're just horrendously misinformed on automobile maintenance. Broken link, again. The actual link, however (see below) shows that the highest temperature where you'll get a -35 wind chill with a reasonable wind speed is -5F, where it requires over 35 mph (at 0F it takes over 60!). Your pipes can and will freeze at that temperature. Your radiator will not because it's full of antifreeze. If you have the cheap stuff or diluted too much you're still probably good to -15 at least, and if you live somewhere this cold you probably shouldn't be using the cheap stuff anyway.
External Quote:
If it were 35 degrees outside with a wind chill of 25, you might think you're in danger of
getting frostbite.
His link is broken, but the correct one:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/winter/faqs.shtml
says:
External Quote:
when the thermometer says it is above freezing so you will not get frostbite; however, you might get hypothermia from exposure to cold.
The link also includes the frostbite chart that clearly shows the wind's influence on time-to-frostbite.
TL;DR:
I'm puzzled by the article. The author put a lot of effort together collecting links that actually refute him, and then using out of context phrases from it to hang his whole argument on the argument that, "I know it's cold, stop telling me."
