Re: Dark horses and cooling????

["Truman Prevatt, PhD" <tprevatt@mindspring.com>]

I remember seeing a description of the amount of heat loss associated with
various methods of cooling horses. The primary method was evaporative, followed
by convection (assuming some type of motion of air). The comment was made that
heat loss from radiation was insignificant and would not be a factor except at
night. This was several years ago and I don't even remember where I saw it, may
have been Equus.

If one also considers the amount of energy upon an IR sensor by the sun vs.
pointed at a horse at night, there seems to be orders of magnitude difference.

All I know is in the SE summer sun I sure don't wear a black shirt.

Truman

Duncan Fletcher wrote:

> On the other hand, take a black radiator and white radiator and pump steam
> or hot water through them. The water (steam) returning from the black
> radiator will be cooler.
>
> Which effect is greater? Depends on the intensity of the radiation from the
> sun vs. the temperature of the radiator (horse's coat). It also depends on
> exactly what wavelengths at which the surface is 'black' - the visible color
> spectrum is not really the major factor here.
>
> I haven't a clue as to what the net effect of all this is.
>
> Duncan Fletcher
> dfletche@gte.net
>