[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Below is my email to CNN regarding their website page on the new wind-chill
scale. It's not really about metric, so skip it if you don't want to read
about a non-metric issue. But i thought some of you might be interested in
the subject anyhow.
Regards,
Bill Hooper
============
MSG. TO CNN via their "response" link that I had to hunt for on their web
site.
--------------------------------------
Your article badly confuses the wind chill with the temperature. They are
not the same thing and cannot be compared or equated.
You wrote: "The wind chill index measures how wind speed affects outdoor
temperatures that are felt by the human body. "
No it does not. The wind chill does not "affect" the temperature in any way.
You wrote:"The public may have trouble with the new system at first because
it makes temperatures appear warmer than they did under the old index."
No they do not. It makes WIND-CHILLS (not temperatures) appear higher than
the wind-chills appeared under the old index.
You wrote: "Brown also said that people in colder climates will have to
adjust themselves mentally to the newly calibrated temperatures."
They are NOT newly calibrated temperatures; they are newly calibrated
WIND-CHILL values. The two are not the same thing.
You wrote: "You'll have to kind of recalculate your feeling of how cold it
actually is out there"
No you won't. It is not actually any colder. The temperature is not lower
because of the wind-chill; it is the WIND-CHILL that is lower because of
the effect of the wind.
You could also tell them that Environment Canada, contrary to their article,
uses watts per square meter to describe windchill, and mentions a 'perceived'
lower temperature only as an afterthought.
Carleton
