CONVECTION

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does convection mean? 

• CONVECTION (noun)
  The noun CONVECTION has 2 senses:

1. the transfer of heat through a fluid (liquid or gas) caused by molecular motion

2. (meteorology) the vertical movement of heat or other properties by massive motion within the atmosphere

  Familiarity information: CONVECTION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONVECTION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The transfer of heat through a fluid (liquid or gas) caused by molecular motion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural processes

Hypernyms ("convection" is a kind of...):

temperature change (a process whereby the degree of hotness of a body (or medium) changes)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(meteorology) the vertical movement of heat or other properties by massive motion within the atmosphere

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural processes

Hypernyms ("convection" is a kind of...):

action; activity; natural action; natural process (a process existing in or produced by nature (rather than by the intent of human beings))

Domain category:

meteorology (the earth science dealing with phenomena of the atmosphere (especially weather))

Derivation:

convect (circulate hot air by convection)

 Context examples 

Convection moves around the clouds of silicate and iron particles, which disaggregate and rain down into the interior.

(GRAVITY instrument breaks new ground in exoplanet imaging, ESO)

In the deep ocean, the ridge acts like a convection cell — water seeps into cracks and fissures on either side and is heated as it gets closer to the center.

(Microbes in underground aquifers beneath deep-sea Mid-Atlantic Ridge 'chow down' on carbon, National Science Foundation)

Titan's methane does not appear to result from convection or plate tectonics recycling its ice shell.

(Ocean on Saturn moon could be as salty as the Dead Sea, NASA)

Magnetic fields form on Earth and other planets that have liquid, metallic cores, rotate rapidly, and experience conditions that make the convection of heat possible.

(Earth's mantle, not its core, may have generated planet's early magnetic field, National Science Foundation)

Through convection enhanced delivery, iodine I 124 monoclonal antibody 8H9 binds to the 4Ig domain of CD276, in turn CD276 expressing tumor cells may be visualized upon PET imaging of the iodine I 124 moiety.

(Iodine I 124 Monoclonal Antibody 8H9, NCI Thesaurus)

When that warm air is forced to rise, it causes convection—a circulation of warm updrafts and cool downdrafts—and sometimes creates a storm.

(Scientists tackle mystery of thunderstorms that strike at night, NSF)

The poles, which do not have this upper-level warmth and therefore no atmospheric stability, allow warm gases from Jupiter's interior to rise, driving convection and therefore creating the ingredients for lightning.

(Juno Solves 39-Year Old Mystery of Jupiter Lightning, NASA)

The planet’s gravity may cause motions of gas in the interior of the star that weaken the convection, said co-author Salvatore Sciortino also of INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo in Italy.

(NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Finds Planet That Makes Star Act Deceptively Old, NASA)

Constant convection, or boiling, of material throughout the sun generates islands of tangled magnetic fields.

(Scientists Uncover Origins of the Sun’s Swirling Spicules, NASA)

Larger stars have a huge core enveloped in a thin layer of stellar material undergoing a process called convection, familiar to us from the circular motion of boiling water.

(Kepler Watches Stellar Dancers in the Pleiades Cluster, NASA)