Temperature Archives - Iran News Daily

‘El Niño’, ‘La Niña’ affecting air temperature in Iran: official

mahla — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 21:03:40 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) –El Niño and La Niña phenomena are among the most important factors affecting the air temperature of many countries in the world, including Iran, Ahad Vazifeh, the head of the national center for drought and crisis management, has said.

‘El Niño’ or “the boy” is widely used to describe the warming of sea surface temperature that occurs every few years, typically concentrated in the central-east equatorial Pacific.

‘La Niña’ or “the girl” is the term adopted for the opposite side of the fluctuation, which sees episodes of cooler than average sea surface temperature in the equatorial Pacific.

Of course, other factors also affect the decrease or increase of the average air temperature in the world, but the change of temperature in the Pacific Ocean is both highly predictable and has a very large scale compared to other indices, he added.

“For this reason, it is one of the most important indicators used for numerical modeling in seasonal forecasts.”

It is expected that in the coming months, the temperature changes of the Pacific Ocean will pass the neutral phase and enter the El Niño phase, or the warm phase, and this change will reach its maximum positive temperature anomaly this winter, Vazifeh explained.

“As much as the El Niño phase is stronger this year, the average winter temperature of this year in many countries, including in Iran, will record higher figures than normal conditions.”

“In 2016, when a very strong El Niño occurred, the temperature in different parts of the world recorded very high figures, and 2016 was the hottest year among all the years that the temperature of the earth has been measured and recorded,” Vazifeh noted.

Iran has a dry and semi-arid climate and has an annual rainfall of 250 mm, which is about one-third of the global average.

The average rainfall of the country has been decreasing over time so the average rainfall of the country for 53 years was about 250 mm, but the average of the last 13 years has decreased to 232 mm.

Over the previous water year which began on September 23, 2021, the rainfall decreased by about 24 percent compared to the long-term average, which marked another year of low rainfall for Iran.

As the newly extracted statistics show, a total of 180.4 mm of rain has poured in the country over the past water year, which shows a decline of 23.9 mm compared to the long-term average of 237.1 mm.

The last water year marked the year of low rainfall for the country, causing the continuation of dry years.

The summer season shows an increase of 19.7 mm in rainfall, which is accompanied by a growth of 71.3 mm compared to the long-term period when the amount of rainfall was 11.5 mm.

The national center for drought and crisis management has forecasted the summer this year will be warmer than normal in the country.

In the northern and eastern provinces of the country, the rainfall is insufficient, and even the relatively normal rainfall of the remaining days of the current water year cannot compensate for the lack of rainfall, ISNA quoted Vazifeh as saying.

The month of Ordibehesht (April 21-May 21) is the most important period in the spring season to receive rainfall in the country and is very important, he stressed.

“For example, in the month of Farvardin (March 21-April 20), usually 35 millimeters of rain is recorded in the country, but in Ordibehesht, the rainfall amounts to about 20 mm. So, the rainfall in Ordibehesht is almost twice as much as in Farvardin.”

“Since the beginning of Farvardin, we have had an average of 25 mm of rain, while during this time period, we should have normally received 38 mm of rain in the long term,” he said.

Therefore, about 33 percent of rainfall has decreased compared to the long term, Vazifeh noted.

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Body temperature of 21st century man

reporter 1222 — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 10:30:21 +0000

A recent analysis of temperature trends suggested that the average human body temperature has dropped since the 19th century due to physiological changes. The authors of the new study also highlighted the potential causes of these alterations.

Most of us only take our temperatures when we are worried that we have a fever, as a result of an infection or a cold, for example, Iran News quotes what medicalnewstoday.com reported.

But body temperature can indicate and be influenced by many other factors; lifestyle habits, age, and ambient temperature can all influence how our body disperses heat.

Body temperature is also a marker of metabolic health. Specifically, the authors of the new study explained, human body temperature indicates the metabolic rate, which some have linked with longevity and body size.

So what is our normal body temperature? In 1851, a German physician called Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich surveyed 25,000 people in one city and established that 37°C is the standard temperature of the human body.

However, recent analyses and surveys suggest that the average body temperature is now lower.

For instance, a study of more than 35,000 people in the United Kingdom and nearly 250,000 temperature measurements found that 36.6°C is the average oral temperature. Could this discrepancy be a result of changes in measurement tools? Or, do the new findings reflect higher life expectancy and better overall health?

Myroslava Protsiv, then at Stanford University’s Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, in California, and colleagues set out to investigate.

The team hypothesized that “the differences observed in temperature between the 19th century and today are real and that the change over time provides important physiologic clues to alterations in human health and longevity since the Industrial Revolution.”

To test their hypothesis, the researchers analyzed information from three datasets:

The first included data from 1862–1930 obtained from Union Army veterans of the Civil War.

The second dataset was from the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I, which took place from 1971–1975.

The third dataset was from the Stanford Translational Research Integrated Database Environment, which contains data from people who received healthcare through Stanford between 2007 and 2017.

Overall, the scientists had access to 677,423 temperature measurements, which they integrated, forming a model of change over time.

Some of the researchers’ findings include:

● The body temperature of men today is, on average, 0.59°C lower than that of men born in the early 19th century.

● Similarly, women’s body temperature dropped by 0.32°C from the 1890s to today.

● Overall, the analysis found a 0.03°C decrease in average temperature with every decade.

To check whether the decreases stemmed from advances in thermometer technology, Protsiv and the team looked at changes within datasets, assuming that doctors in each historical period were generally using the same types of thermometers.

The results of the analysis within datasets reflected the changes in the combined data. “Our temperature’s not what people think it is,” said Dr. Julie Parsonnet, a professor of medicine, health research, and policy, and the senior author of the study.

However, because gender, time of day, and age can each change our body temperature, the researchers do not advise updating the standard for all US adults.

What has caused our temperature to drop?

So why has the average body temperature changed? “Physiologically, we’re just different from what we were in the past,” Parsonnet said.

“The environment that we’re living in has changed, including the temperature in our homes, our contact with microorganisms, and the food that we have access to.”

“All these things mean that, although we think of human beings as if we’re monomorphic and have been the same for all of human evolution, we’re not the same. We’re actually changing physiologically.”

Furthermore, Parsonnet believes, the average metabolic rate, which indicates how much energy our bodies use, has declined over time. This decrease could result from a decrease in inflammation.

“Inflammation produces all sorts of proteins and cytokines that rev up your metabolism and raise your temperature,” she said.

Finally, air conditioning and heating have resulted in a more consistent ambient temperature, making it unnecessary to expend energy to maintain the same body temperature.

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