What are applications of the high heat capacity of water in daily life?

1 Answer
Aug 18, 2015

Some possible applications of the SHC of water in daily life:

  • We sweat and take advantage of water's high SHC; sweating out moisture allows heat to be transferred to the moisture, promoting its vaporization and the leaving of said heat. Even when we don't sweat a lot, it still helps due to water's high SHC. That helps us cool down.

  • We can cool down by diving into a cold pool. The cold water has both the advantage of a high temperature difference with your warm body and a high SHC due to having a large volume, and heat transfers out of your body quickly, yet the water remains fairly cold due to its high SHC.

  • When we're cold, we can wrap a sock around a bottle of hot water and touch it to warm up; the hot water remains hot for a relatively long time due to its high SHC.