To rephrase, if a rock sits outside in 10F weather with -10F windchill, is the rock’s surface temperature 10F or -10F?
In: 4775
Think of it like this:
If you are in air or water colder than you will cool down. The colder it is the faster you cool down and the colder you will get.
If wind or water moves past you it will cool you down faster and the colder you will get.
In both cases you, as hot bodied mammal, will not reach ambient temperature, somewhere above ambient.
So a ‘colder’ -10 deg room and a 5 deg room that has wind instead, can both make you cool to the same point (7deg) despite being different ambient temperatures. (No one’s blood is freezing normally when it’s snowing)
Without internal heating, a rock would just cool to ambient temperature. However! The wind would cool it faster, and while it’s cooling down to ambient, the rock may feel like it’s in a colder environment due to the rapid rate of cooling – but it stops at ambient.
“Wow, I am a rock and my temperature is dropping super fast, I must be in a very cold environment” (but actually is just wind cooling it fast)
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