To my understanding we cool off via sweat by heating up the sweat and letting it evaporate off. That system should only function based on my understanding if the air is cooler than our skin. If that is the only system in play our body temp minimum should always be the temp of the outside air, making 110F weather fatal. What am I missing here?
In: Biology
Sweat is only a part of cooling. Most heat we lose is radiated as infrared light. Converting liquid water to vapor requires energy to be put into the process, not just having sufficient temperature, so it actually cools whatever it is evaporating from.
Air itself is very poor at moving heat around, which helps us endure higher temperature while our body is cooler. It’s ultimately when the body can’t remove heat faster than what is gained that you start to overheat, and that point depends on many factors beyond just air temperature.
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