Convective - heat transfer carried by air - it's mainly how we heat/cool our homes ...
Conductive - heat transfer through a solid - heat one end of a length of steel strap with a torch and after awhile the other end it too hot to hold ...
Radiant - the transfer of heat by transmission through a gas (atmosphere) - like a radio wave - independent of air movement - why we like shade ...
My son - the engineer - actually got into this conversation with me and ran a calculation on convective vs. radiant by balancing a formula within an enclosed chamber like our pits. My question was "which is more effective - radiant or convective?" - he concluded that they're about even. Conductive on the other hand takes a while - it's why we often spend an hour or more getting our pits stable - conductive takes that long to get to the party and all 3 players have an effect on the final temp.
I THOUGHT I had read all the posts here but dang if I can find this one ... hope this helps someone -
