3 ms·
Is the temperature of the blanket or sheet, under which I'd be sweating profusely for 8 hours, meaningfully less than the temperature of my bare flesh without t
by LeifCarrotson 9y ago
Is the temperature of the blanket or sheet, under which I'd be sweating profusely for 8 hours, meaningfully less than the temperature of my bare flesh without the covering?
My metabolism is still producing the same amount of heat energy, and my radiant surface area doesn't increase much. If anything, the efficiency of convective and evaporative cooling drops significantly when I cover myself, so you'd think that the blanket would give off a stronger heat signature.
Thoughts?
- sampl 9y agoCould be wrong about how this works, but... if it was true that a person under blankets radiates about as much heat as a bare body, that would mean blankets aren’t very good at keeping us warm. (But they do keep us warm)
- VLM 9y agoI borrowed a FLIR to check my house insulation, inevitably screwing around will happen. Also images.google.com is full of FLIR people pix. In summary the outside of clothing is much colder than skin, surely blankets are similar.
- Terr_ 9y agoIn terms of the "hunting snake theory", perhaps it's a radiation-vs-convection thing? Supposing your body has the same amount of waste-heat per second and the whole system has reached a steady state, perhaps less of it would be leaving as infrared light (detectable by some snakes' "pit organ") and a greater proportion would be leaving via the upward rise of warmed air.