Thursday, February 2, 2017

The Blanket Analogy

In the opening video the lecturer says the greenhouse analogy isn't really good, and that the blanket analogy should rather be used. I disagree strongly. The blanket analogy has the same problem as the greenhouse and more (being opague). He says "The problem is that what really warms the greenhouse up is the prevention of air flow, stopping the loss of heat by convection." Similarly, the blanket stops airflow over the body - stopping the loss of heat by convection. Also a blanket is really conduction related insulation and the problem is radiation, not convection or conduction. So, if you have a blanket over you - you have a twofold advantage over being naked - firstly the blanket provides a thermal insulation that prevents heat flow through conduction. The second advantage is that you don't have air flowing over your body at a quick rate, so the convection heat loss that you have is lower.

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