Assuming no wind 60 degrees outside feels decently warm however when the ac is set to 60 degrees I feel like I need a jacket.
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Assuming you are running AC, your air is being conditioned, not just cooled. The difference in humidity is what you’re actually experiencing.
In dry air (lower humidity), your body has more ability to regulate its temp through evaporation. Moist air does not have the same capacity so your body has more trouble thermoregulating.
When your AC is running the temperature of the air blowing out is lower than what you have it set to, so you will have all sorts of powerful drafts blowing the cool air around. That plus the reduced humidity.
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There’s a few reasons:
When outdoors you are moving around, exposed to direct sunlight, and expect to be cooler.
Moving generates a lot of heat. Indoors, a 60 degree room can be perfect for vigorous exercise, but feels cold if sitting still and working or learning at a desk.
Being exposed to direct sunlight, even when the air is cold, can result in you gaining a good amount of heat. Sunlight is turned into heat when it strikes something.
You also expect the outdoors to be cool or cold. You dress for it, and unless it’s exceptional won’t take any special note of being chilled outdoors instead of inside.
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As others mentioned, IR heat is part of the answer. Being outside you experience the warming effect of the Sun on the planet and the radiating heat from surfaces exposed to sunlight.
But also, if you are basing the outdoor temperature on info from a weather app or station, their temperature is always measured in the shade. Depending on the time of day, the temp in the shade is going to be dramatically cooler than the temp in direct sunlight where you may be standing.
The air inside most modern houses, at least in the US and Canada, isn’t just cooled, but *conditioned*. This means the humidity is kept comparatively-low, especially compared to humidity you can encounter outside your home.
60 degrees in high-humidity air *’feels’* hotter than 60 degrees in low-humidity air, because when the air is humid your body’s ability to cool via evaporation ((you sweat onto the surface of your skin, the liquid sweat transfers some of your body heat to itself, then evaporates into the atmosphere) is inhibited.
For your daily dose of nightmare fuel, this is why scientists are freaking out about “wet bulb temperatures”: when the relative humidity of the air hits 100%, your bodies ability to cool itself via evaporation is effectively negated, and if the temperature of the air is high enough (35 °C (95 °F)) at the same time, your body starts to ‘*absorb’* heat from the surrounding environment, rather than shedding it.
With climate change, we are likely going to start seeing more and more deadly wet-bulb temperatures
I like these answers except one thing
That 60 degrees that you’re seeing is in the shade, not in the sunlight. So you’re feeling the heat from the sun. If you stayed in the shade all day you’d probably need a jacket
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