Thursday, October 25, 2012

Does your body lose heat faster at a higher windspeed relative to a lower windspeed over the same interval?

To understand if the body loses heat faster at a higher windspeed relative to a lower one, one must first understand the idea of body heat and conduction. Even on a completely calm day, the body loses heat to conduction. This occurs when molecules in the air, located very close to the skin, actually absorb heat from the body. As the molecules move around randomly in the air, some will move away from the body, taking the heat they absorbed away as well. While this effect may be negligible on calm days, on windy days, more molecules in the air will come into contact with the body, and move away more rapidly, taking more heat with them over the same period of time. This is why windy days may appear to feel colder than calm days having the same air temperature. As one can imagine, when windspeed increases, an increasing number of air molecules come into contact with the body, absorb heat, and move away more quickly over the same time interval as on a calm day. This causes the body to lose heat faster over this interval. Your body loses heat more rapidly at a higher windspeed relative to a lower windspeed over the same time period. Heat loss from the body due to wind can be calculated based on windspeed, and is used by meteorologists to explain what the temperature of a day may actually feel like relative to the actual temperature of the air. This calculation is known as the "wind-chill factor."


Hope this helps!

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