Preserving Your Body Heat
Like divers, sea otters require an exposure suit to stay warm in their cold environment. They stay warm by trapping air inside their thick fur coat. As you'll learn during this lesson, air is an excellent insulator.
Why Divers Wear Exposure Suits
Warmth is one of the major factors contributing to a diver's enjoyment. Amazing visibility or an abundance of marine life will go unnoticed if you're in a hurry to exit the water to get warm.
Warmth is also a major safety factor. Heat is conducted from our skin whenever we are in an environment cooler than our skin temperature. This rarely presents problems for us on land because our bodies can produce heat fast enough to maintain our core body temperature. However, water conducts heat from our bodies 25 times faster than air. This means that without thermal protection, our bodies can chill in any water that's cooler than our skin temperature.
Warmth is also a major safety factor. Heat is conducted from our skin whenever we are in an environment cooler than our skin temperature. This rarely presents problems for us on land because our bodies can produce heat fast enough to maintain our core body temperature. However, water conducts heat from our bodies 25 times faster than air. This means that without thermal protection, our bodies can chill in any water that's cooler than our skin temperature.
