This condition slows down the heating process and also because of convection currents. Land and water have different capacities for absorbing and liberating heat. It is good to note that the specific heat of water is higher than that of land. Hence, water requires more heat than land does to increase its temperature at the same number of degrees. Water, having a higher specific heat, warms up more slowly than land. On the other hand, water also cools off more slowly than land because it retains its heat longer.
The unequal heating of water and land is also due to some of the insolation falling on water that is used in the evaporation process. Obviously, that heat does not warm the water. There is no effect on land, because there is less evaporation of water takes place from land surfaces.
The sun's heat is being trapped by the atmosphere. This process is called the greenhouse effect, where the energy from the sun warms the air after having been first absorbed at the earth's surface. Thus, causes a warmer temperature. The greenhouse effect is also responsible for absorbing and subsequently re-emitting the radiation to the atmosphere gases.
But what about in places where most people experience cold climates? To warm their bodies, they will need to have heating device built within their houses. They normally insulate...
However, heat is still lost through dissipation. As mentioned in
Wikipedia, there is a device called thermostat that is "capable of starting the heating system when the house's interior falls below a set temperature, and of stopping that same system when another (higher) set temperature has been achieved."
Aside from the discussions we have made above, there are also other heat transfer mechanisms that we should know. These are latent heat and heat pipe. In latent heat, the transfer of heat results to a change in physical form such as water-to-ice or water-to-steam. When heat is transferred, the substance ice can be melted into water. If you will notice, this change does not cause a raise in temperature. Although heat is absorbed by this change of state, the absorbed energy is not used to speed up the molecules, but the energy was used to change the bonding between the molecules. These processes were utilized through the use of refrigerator, steam engine, and other mechanical and electrical devices. A refrigerator uses heat exchanger that is built for efficient heat transfer from one liquid to another. The fluids may be separated by a solid wall so that they never mix, or the fluids are directly contacted. Heat exchangers are also used in air conditioning,
space heating, power production, and chemical processing. On the contrary, if a solid is heated through its melting point, it will melt and turn to liquid. Heat pipes, on the other side, can also carry many times as much heat as a similar-sized copper rod using latent heat and capillary action. Although the heat transfer in boiling fluid is complex, it is of considerable technical importance in the industry. Truly, temperature and heat are vital life.
Works Cited
Daintith, John (2005). Oxford Dictionary of Physics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280628-9.
Heat. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 19 April 2008, from Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat.Lastmodified 21 April 2008.
