Unless you're changing the laws of physics, water retains heat much greater than air does. Your body heats the water in your suit and in turn the water resists temp changes and provides warmth. The neoprene reduces thermal transfer from the water in your suit to the water outside your suit.
Try this experiment. Wear a quality wetsuit with good seals that provides very minimal water transfer. After your dive you will stand up on the dive platform and gravity will drain the water from your suit and you will definitely notice the loss of warmth immediately.
Here is some text from the Pinnacle Aquatics website:
There’s an old school physics experiment where an ice cube is wired to the bottom of a test tube filled with water. When the students dutifully heat the top of the test tube with a flame and boil away the surface water, the ice remains frozen. “What does that demonstrate, Jenkins?” the physics teacher would ask. Jenkins would shrug helplessly while the rest of the class attempt to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. “Water,” the physics teacher would explain pointedly while stalking between desks and glaring at each student in turn, “is an excellent thermal insulator”, “Ah yes, of course”, the class would scribble this exciting fact down and promptly forget it once the final Physics exam has been completed. Wetsuit manufacturers have been making the most of this basic physics principle for decades. It’s not your wetsuit that keeps you warm, it’s the thin layer of water trapped between your skin and the wetsuit that you can thank for keeping you toasty and snug 90 feet deep off Vancouver Island. The water that seeps into your suit during the first few minutes of your dive absorbs the heat energy emanating from your skin as you fin. Your body heat quickly warms the water layer, and Pinnacle’s innovative sealing features ensure it won’t flush. Water also has a large “thermal sink”, which means a large amount of thermal energy can be absorbed by a relatively small mass of fluid. In wetsuit applications, the water in your suit becomes a thermal reservoir, heating up during periods of hard exercise then transmitting this stored thermal energy back to you when you’re less active. Not only does this water layer keep you warm, it also helps keep you comfortable. If your suit didn’t have this water layer, then the neoprene material could cause a “squeeze” (the painful trapping of a diver’s skin in a material fold whilst descending…Ouch!). As you descend into the darker depths, neoprene becomes less effective as a thermal insulator as it is very porous and so susceptible to pressure changes. The deeper you dive, the thinner your suit becomes (e.g.: an 8.5mm wetsuit can compress to only 3.6mm thick at 150 feet deep). The good news is that the layer of deliciously warm water caressing your skin remains the same. Result: you stay warm, even at depth.
Try this experiment. Wear a quality wetsuit with good seals that provides very minimal water transfer. After your dive you will stand up on the dive platform and gravity will drain the water from your suit and you will definitely notice the loss of warmth immediately.
Here is some text from the Pinnacle Aquatics website:
There’s an old school physics experiment where an ice cube is wired to the bottom of a test tube filled with water. When the students dutifully heat the top of the test tube with a flame and boil away the surface water, the ice remains frozen. “What does that demonstrate, Jenkins?” the physics teacher would ask. Jenkins would shrug helplessly while the rest of the class attempt to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. “Water,” the physics teacher would explain pointedly while stalking between desks and glaring at each student in turn, “is an excellent thermal insulator”, “Ah yes, of course”, the class would scribble this exciting fact down and promptly forget it once the final Physics exam has been completed. Wetsuit manufacturers have been making the most of this basic physics principle for decades. It’s not your wetsuit that keeps you warm, it’s the thin layer of water trapped between your skin and the wetsuit that you can thank for keeping you toasty and snug 90 feet deep off Vancouver Island. The water that seeps into your suit during the first few minutes of your dive absorbs the heat energy emanating from your skin as you fin. Your body heat quickly warms the water layer, and Pinnacle’s innovative sealing features ensure it won’t flush. Water also has a large “thermal sink”, which means a large amount of thermal energy can be absorbed by a relatively small mass of fluid. In wetsuit applications, the water in your suit becomes a thermal reservoir, heating up during periods of hard exercise then transmitting this stored thermal energy back to you when you’re less active. Not only does this water layer keep you warm, it also helps keep you comfortable. If your suit didn’t have this water layer, then the neoprene material could cause a “squeeze” (the painful trapping of a diver’s skin in a material fold whilst descending…Ouch!). As you descend into the darker depths, neoprene becomes less effective as a thermal insulator as it is very porous and so susceptible to pressure changes. The deeper you dive, the thinner your suit becomes (e.g.: an 8.5mm wetsuit can compress to only 3.6mm thick at 150 feet deep). The good news is that the layer of deliciously warm water caressing your skin remains the same. Result: you stay warm, even at depth.
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