Basically title, you always hear “windchill only affects humans” but we use fans to cool things all the time?
In: Physics
If an object is not already at ambient temperature, then moving air will hasten its return to ambient temperature. You are not usually at ambient temperature. Your car after some use is not at ambient temperature. In these cases airflow is important in understanding how quickly things heat and cool.
But when your car’s been sitting outside unused for an hour? Or the railing on your balcony? The door handle at the store? Those are going to be at normal temperatures to begin with.
Unfortunately, wind chill as a “temperature” number isn’t very helpful because it depends on the temperature of the thing that’s cooling off. Humans all tend to be around the same temperature, so it makes a bit of sense to choose one “feels like” temperature for wind chill, but the same cannot be said for a warm car or an uninsulated window. At this point the answer just becomes “it’s complicated” and any further analysis becomes mathematical.
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