ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Convective heat transfer

Hey there kiddo! Have you ever sat by a warm fire or felt the breeze on a hot day? Well, those are examples of convection!

Convective heat transfer is when heat is transferred through a fluid - like air or water - due to differences in temperature. Imagine you're sitting in a car on a hot summer day. The sunlight shining through the window warms up the inside of the car. The air around you gets warm too, and starts to rise up towards the ceiling.

This rising warm air creates a convection current - like a river flowing in the air. The warm air rises and is replaced by cooler air, which is then warmed up and rises too. This convection current helps transfer the heat from the sun to the air inside the car.

Another example is when you boil water on the stove. You start off with cold water in a pot and turn on the heat. The heat from the stove causes the water at the bottom of the pot to warm up and become less dense. This warm water rises to the top of the pot and cooler water takes its place at the bottom. This process continues until all the water in the pot is at the same hot temperature. This is another example of convection!

So, convection is a fancy way of saying that heat can move through fluids like air and water by creating currents caused by temperature differences. Pretty cool, huh?