“Entering the future”: a 50°C cabin to test global warming

In an aisle of the Verdun Fair, a truck serving as a cold room for a restaurant. Opposite, a more surprising truck: a “mobile climate room”, this one warm, allows the daredevils to walk on a carpet, read or even have a tea… at 50°C.

The installation, called Climate Sense, “puts people in a climate situation in several years, around 2050, 2060, when there could be climate peaks at 50°C“, explains to AFP Christian Clot, explorer-researcher and director of the Human Adaptation Institute, based in Marseille, which created and financed the experiment.

Its goal? To make visitors simulate life in stifling heat for 30 minutes. It starts with 10 minutes of sport: walking on a treadmill or running, then a relaxation area for agility exercises, and finally a cognitive work session.to realize that we have more difficulty making complex decisions“and to think about,” says Mr. Clot.

The project, born in his mind at the beginning of 2021, is a “world first”. A few climatic chambers, allowing the temperature to vary between -20°C and 50°C, as well as the humidity level, exist in research centers but they had never been made mobile, allowing them to reach the general public.

Sweating, “heavy brain”

“You will enter the future“, Christian Clot tells a man who comes to the cabin. When you enter, what a shock! After the 15°C outside, your body temperature rises quickly with the 50°C ambient temperature, and the physical exercise required doesn’t help. While some start by running, they quickly finish by walking gently, which is also recommended.

“We’re a bit used to doing sports, but we got hot doing the treadmill,” said Clélio, a retiree who came with his wife to try out the experience, his face still red, and who did not want to give his last name.

“On the treadmill, when I was running at 3.5 km/h, I felt like I was running at 6 or 7 km/h.“, his wife adds.

During agility and reactivity games, such as pressing as quickly as possible where the light comes on, Joëlle felt “a little sensitivity” in her fingertips.With heat, blood vessels narrow“which can give tingling or electrical sensations,” the teams at theHuman Adaptation Institute.

After about twenty minutes, “it’s more complicated to read, and the brain is super heavy,” notes Maëlys Lahure, a student who came to test the experience. She “was starting to sweat a little, to be clammy” under her little blue sweater, and her face was turning red.

Better awareness

The causes and effects of global warming are documented and the public is informed, but the fact of “living in one’s flesh” the hypothesis of a climate at 50°C allows a better awareness and to ask oneself “What can we do today to prevent this from happening?“, Mr. Clot emphasizes.”The goal is not to scare people, it is first to raise awareness from within“.

On the way out, visitors can watch a film explaining the effects of rising temperatures on organisms.

“We can still act, there is no inevitability, it is not too late“, recalls the institute.

Around fifty possible solutions, individual or collective, are also proposed, with the hope that everyone will choose one or two solutions and implement them concretely.

The mobile climate chamber will be open to the public from September 30 to October 4 at the Batimat trade fair in Paris. And the aim will also be to bring in decision-makers, politicians and business leaders.

“We could not rule out reaching 50°C“in several regions of France”at the end of the century in the warming trajectory“climatic,” Jean-Michel Soubeyroux, deputy scientific director of climatology and climate services at Météo-France, told AFP.

Global warming is expected to reach +4°C by 2100 in France, while it is already +1.7°C on average today, according to the Ministry of Ecological Transition.

As for the climate cabin, Mr. Soubeyroux sees it as “an educational interest” and a “collective reflection” to adapt to such temperatures.