Do you know about the contradictory nature of water? Did you know that when you go to the sea, you get a pleasant cool breeze?

 

At normal temperatures, liquids generally expand when heated and contract when cooled. This is the natural expansion property of liquids. But water is the liquid we use the most out of all the existing liquids.

Water contracts when heated from 0°C to 4°C. When water is cooled from room temperature until it reaches 4°C its density decreases. When it is cooled below 4°C, its bulk increases and its density decreases.

Specifically, we can see the density of water at 4°C. This property of water is known as the paradoxical expansion of water. The exact reason for this is unknown as it is a natural phenomenon.

Generally in cold countries, the surface temperature of lakes is lower than their base temperature during winter.

Because the density of ice is less than that of normal water. Water that freezes below 4 degrees Celsius floats above normal water and comes to the surface of lakes due to the anomalous expansion of water.

The surface of lakes and ponds is covered by a thin layer of ice, but the water below remains unfrozen and protects aquatic life. Perhaps this is why nature has given water a paradoxical expansion.

During the daytime, the sun's radiation warms the land faster than the seawater because of the lower thermal capacity of the land.

That is, the material with the least specific heat capacity heats up first. When we heat an aluminium vessel and a brass vessel together the aluminium heats up first. This is because the thermal conductivity of aluminium is less than the thermal conductivity of brass. This means aluminium's specific heat capacity is lesser than brass.

That is why the specific heat capacity of land is lower than the specific heat capacity of seawater even if the sunlight is the same.

Therefore, during the day the land gets warmer than the seawater and as a result, the air over the land expands and becomes less dense and rises. At that time, the cold air on the surface of the sea blows towards the land and we call it sea breeze.

  In contrast, the land surface cools faster than the sea surface at night due to the low specific heat capacity of the land. The material with the lowest specific heat capacity will cool first, so the land surface will cool first then the sea surface. As a result, the air over the ocean expands and its density decreases and it rises. At that time, the dense cold air over the land blows towards the sea and we call it the land breeze.

That is why when we go to the beach during the day time than at night time we can feel the cool breeze.