<<Up     Contents

Latent heat

Heat that is transported by a body that contains more water vapor than its surroundings. Because energy is needed to turn water into water vapor, water vapor is a way for a body to store energy (along with potential energy, kinetic energy, and sensible heat). If the water vapor is returned to a liquid or solid phase (by condensation or sublimation), the stored energy is released.

wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump