Memories of the 28th Century

Psychological Considerations in Winter Coats

Living in an area that has been frequented by part of the Polar Vortex this Winter has given me the opportunity to observe the varied ways that people dress for chilly weather. As anyone who lives in a chilly region knows, there is considerable variation in how people dress for Winter days. Through the decades I have tried many sorts of coat, and I have found little difference in warmth among them. The materials, thickness, etc. seem to have very little to do with how much warmer they make me feel. Although I have been paying attention to this matter for some tim; in the last few years I have tried an experiment that many people have thought to be madness; I have gone through Winter wearing only a suit jacket and a scarf for outerwear. The result has been that I have been as comfortable as I was in other years, when I wore a heavy coat.

The actual results of the experiment are not completely known, because I do not know how warm or chilly other people feel, nor have I looked into anyone's metabolic rate. Putting that aside, I have concluded that the differences in requirements for Winter coats is mostly psychological. People have been told that zero degrees Fahrenheit is cold, so they feel compelled to feel cold, even though they are warm-blooded and produce more than enough heat to stay warm at such a temperature, as long as they wear a minimum of insulating clothing.

Thoughts as to what constitutes "being cold" vary and depend on personal experience. I lived through a period when temperatures didn't rise to 32F during the day for a month, and for the first two weeks of that period the nightly lows were below minus twenty. That gave me a different perspective on what is means to be cold. Those days when it got up to ten were pleasantly warm, as has been the case with this Winter, and times when it gets to zero with no wind it feels comfortable. People who have never experienced weeks of temperatures below zero might have a little trouble with conditions like that, but they probably are quite capable of tolerating such temperatures.

To get back to the beginning, that big, thick, fluffy coat that you have isn't what is keeping you warm. You are keeping yourself warm, because the coat signals your brain to tell your metabolism to increase to keep you warm. Another major factor is one's location. People who spend their time in Ecuador don't usually have much need for protection from the cold, but people who were in the North Central and North Eastern parts of the United States of America recently have had some such need. But the reason for the coolth in those areas has been a displacement and split in the Northern Polar Vortex, which send coolth from the high latitudes to the South. Events like this are not that unusual; they are caused by certain weather patterns in the Eastern Pacific, and they happen every few years. This year's attack of the Polar Vortex has been a little lengthier than is typical, but that simply gave us more opportunities to become accustomed to the coolth.

Beyond becoming accustomed to the coolth one can simply opt to avoid it, and my regular readers already known that I am planning to conquer the Phoenix Islands in the Central Pacific, where the temperatures are perfectly appropriate to people who wish to avoid Winter coats, and all other clothing for that matter. It is very doubtful that a Polar Vortex could ever wander that far South, but I would be willing to observe the weather and help to answer that question more completely.

Until that happens remember that it isn't the coat that keeps you warm in Wintery temperatures; it is you metabolism, but a little bit of insulation can help. And there is also the matter of whether one is hot-blooded.

I'm not going into it, but remember also that "wind chill" is only relevant if you are wet and nude. If you are dry and wearing wind-proof clothing then "wind chill" is irrelevant.