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Be Prepared
Thu Jan 23, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. Now that winter is upon us, it is time to make
sure our bodies are prepared for the cold ahead. Dr. Murray Hamlet, formerly of the U.S.
Army's Research Institute of Environmental Medicine. Dr. Hamlet has much to say about gearing
yourself against the cold.
The hard part is working in your clothes, that is, exercise and working in your clothes.
That's tricky because what you have to worry about is what's called the permeability of those
clothes, and that means the ability, or inability if you will, to move water from your skin
surface out through those fluff layers to the outside and get it outside your clothing.
So, in order to do that you have to take off your fluff layers so that the outer shell is
close enough to your skin so it's warmer than the dew point of the air. What that requires is
that you learn to tolerate a colder skin temperature. And that's the key to cold weather
clothing.
And when you learn that and how to do that ahead of time -- it takes a little forethought --
you're going to be able to live and work in the cold easily.
Most of the time what I see when people get hurt is, they don't understand the physics of what
they're doing; they haven't even got close to what they need when they're sitting, you know,
when they're trapped some place. And then they're at the mercy of the environment because once
you sit down you have to be able to physically provide enough insulation to protect you in
that environment or you're gone.
Dr. Murray Hamlet still lectures about cold issues for SOLO Wilderness Medicine. Come to our
website for some cool links: www.weathernotebook.org. The Weather Notebook is brought to you
by Subaru in conjunction with the National Science Foundation.
SOLO Homepage
http://www.soloschools.com/
How to Stay Warm with Dr. Murray Hamlet
http://www.yankeemagazine.com/travel/inseason/winter/stayingwarm.php
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