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Kathleen,

 

Don't forget water has a very high heat of vaporization.  This is the energy it takes to convert liquid water to water vapor. 

 

Specific heat = 1.8 kJ/Kg

Heat of vaporization = 2.3 MJ/Kg

 

Over three orders of magnitude more energy is consumed evaporating water than through conductive cooling through specific heat.

 

The same would be true of metals but I wouldn't recommend pouring molten metal on your horse. ;-)

 

Cheers, Pete

 

From: "Kathleen" <kathleenmarie@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [RC] specific heat of water

Water has a high specific heat-which is the measure of how many calories it
takes to raise one gram of a substance by one degree Celsius  and conversely
how many calories would need to be lost to drop one gram of material by one
degree C. 

The specific heat of water is 1 cal per gram-degree C.  (in contrast metals
have numbers in the tenths of a calorie and lower).

Therefore, water heats slowly and cools slowly.

Kathleen Ferguson