Hot Season brings miserable hot wet wind from the sea

Much like the Texas Gulf, onshore hot season wind smothers Bangkok with heat and humidity. Even at the coolest time of the day the saturated air from the gulf to the south is close to 29C (surface sea temp, red), so sweat at body temperature will provide little cooling.

2015 a moderate hot season so far

Notwithstanding some excited tourist twitters on the subject, I fail to find anything special about hot season heat this year. In fact early rains have tended to moderate heat buildup. If SE Asia is being threatened by global warming, it is not showing up in Bangkok temperatures.

Red is temp at Don Muang, green is dew point. Temps are topping out at about 35 C. So far, anyway.

2015 a moderate hot season so far

Notwithstanding some excited tourist twitters on the subject, I fail to find anything special about hot season heat this year. In fact early rains have tended to moderate heat buildup. If SE Asia is being threatened by global warming, it is not showing up in Bangkok temperatures.

Red is temp at Don Muang, green is dew point. Temps are topping out at about 35 C. So far, anyway.

A wet pillow last night

This is my idea of the time to turn on an air conditioner, when you begin to sweat into your pillow in the middle of the night. Turns out the room temperature was 30 degrees (86 F), dew point 25, "wet rag" temp 27. This exceeds the limit for sub-sweating body temperature equilibrium when lying on a western-style mattress. (see free sample chapter for more on this).

A skinny Thai sleeping on a bamboo mat will be able to put up with more.

A wet pillow last night

This is my idea of the time to turn on an air conditioner, when you begin to sweat into your pillow in the middle of the night. Turns out the room temperature was 30 degrees (86 F), dew point 25, "wet rag" temp 27. This exceeds the limit for sub-sweating body temperature equilibrium when lying on a western-style mattress. (see free sample chapter for more on this).

A skinny Thai sleeping on a bamboo mat will be able to put up with more.

Torrid weather on the way

According to the Thai Meteorological Department, this weeks fresh northerly breezes and rare thunderstorms will yield to an oppressive wave of heat, up to 44 degrees C, during the coming holidays of Songkram. Nice while it lasted, with night temperatures plunging to the high 70s F.

Torrid weather on the way

According to the Thai Meteorological Department, this weeks fresh northerly breezes and rare thunderstorms will yield to an oppressive wave of heat, up to 44 degrees C, during the coming holidays of Songkram. Nice while it lasted, with night temperatures plunging to the high 70s F.

Sleep without aircon

My (Thai) wife not using air conditioning at night late this week (in the Bangkok hot season) when midweek freak rains (causing serious local flooding) cooled Bangkok very nicely and brought night breezes from the lovely north.

However, this is,  as always, with a table fan directed at the bed.

less than this, you don't need it.

Sleep without aircon

My (Thai) wife not using air conditioning at night late this week (in the Bangkok hot season) when midweek freak rains (causing serious local flooding) cooled Bangkok very nicely and brought night breezes from the lovely north.

However, this is,  as always, with a table fan directed at the bed.

less than this, you don't need it.

Mango shower

Yesterday the gathering 95F heat broke with a pleasant morning "mango shower", first of the year, which kept skies gray and temps down all day for pleasant neighborhood and canal-side walking in deep Ekamai. These light pre-season rains are common in SE Asia and India, said to help ripen the mangos. Sure enough, the market was loaded with the fruit, though the ones on our deck tree are still green. Our US visitors were delighted with the taste.

Bangkok flooding with hot humid air

Yesterday Bangkok smothered in humidity. Long slog of the hot season arrives.

Twenty thousand days at Don Muang

This graphic shows the average daily temp at Don Muang since 1951 (top to bottom). Courtesy of the Thai Meteorology Department. 

Values to left are dips in temp, values to right are hot days. The year markers (white horizontal lines) are set to Songram which as expected is close to the hottest day of the year.

For larger size of this graphic click on "20,000 days in Bangkok" in right sidebar. 

I have several ideas about this record.

1. Bangkok weather is more variable annually than I once expected. Perhaps this is true of Thai people too.

2. There is a very sight rising trend to temps at DM, maybe a degree over the whole sixty three year period. Urban heat island effect (heat-gathering effect of urban development) is certainly part of the reason for this, perhaps the full reason. Hence significant global warming is not apparent in this record.

3. Some apparent changes can probably be explained by the re-siting of the measurement point or changes in immediate surroundings including construction.

4. The small gap at the bottom is due to absence of records during 2011 flooding. The record stops mid 2013, I will add more later.

In Thailand a Man Needs Three Things

A little background here. When I came back to live in Thailand fifteen years ago, I decided to do what Jim Thompson had done in the 1940s, move an old Thai house too Bangkok. This short video tells the story.

In Thailand a Man Needs Three Things

A little background here. When I came back to live in Thailand fifteen years ago, I decided to do what Jim Thompson had done in the 1940s, move an old Thai house too Bangkok. This short video tells the story.

Where did hot poverty-stricken Thailand go?

Wandering mid day through the sparkling Srinakharinwirot University which seems as luxurious as Stanford. What happened to the Third World? Hard to believe people are protesting about anything. And Bangkok heat: where did that go? Most beautiful day I can recall in fifty years here, low 70's  all day. Thank you China for your air.

Global Warming in Bangkok? Take a second look

For years we have been seeing graphs like this one for Bangkok, showing how the city is going to get insufferably hot in the coming years becuse of CO2 induced global warming, with frightening rises in sea level. My village neighbor way up on the Korat plateau even asked me if he should be worried about the sea rising that high.

But wait a minute here... a few years back the Japanese researcher Taniguchi had been doing some careful measurements of ground temperatures over the years and he raises some questions about all of this.

For example in this graph he compares Bangkok temperatures at Don Muang airport -- the usual historical measurement spot -- with temperatures in Lopburi. Seems that the airport temps are rising, but not those in the countryside. Think about that for a minutes. Aren't airports where most temperatures showing "global warming" are measured?

Here is a satellite image of the ground surface temperature of Bangkok in 2009.

So the question is, is most of the alleged "global warming" in Thailand (and elsewhere?) really just urban heat island effects around old airports where temperatures are measured?