two summertime questions

first: do UV rays bounce off of water to any appreciable amount? because I always get burned a lot on my shoulders/upper chest when I get burned in our pool, and the water comes up to below my nipples.

2nd: Does a ceiling fan being on help keep the room cooler?

Background information: My room is an average size, I’d say about 24’ by 20’, rectangular, obviously. My walls go up about 12 feet, and then my ceiling looks like the inside of a truncated triangular prism. This prism goes up about 4 feet vertically, and the pitch looks close to 1:1. The shorter walls are where the two faces of the prism would be. There is a ceiling fan, larger than average, but not huge, 5 bladed in the center that blows air down, and an A/C vent to one side of the fan along the long axis of my room in the ceiling. The fan hangs a little below the 12 or so feet of my wall. On the wall opposite my door, there are 2 windows. One spans most of the width of my room and goes up about 8 feet. This is covered with mini-blinds and drapes. There is another widnow above that, seperated by a 1-foot or so section of vertical wall, which is about 1.5 feet in height, and the same width as the other window. This window is covered in 1-inch thick styrofoam followed by cloth honeycomb-shaped blinds (I don’t know how to describe them, but I think the styrofoam blocks out enough sun. ) My dad keeps popping in our room and turning the fan off, claiming that it will keep the room cooler, but in my experience, it does not. Any help? (It’s getting really annoying to get up and keep turning the fan off. ):dubious:

ceiling fan: might make the room hotter at people level, by knocking hot air off the ceiling, but it makes it feel cooler via a wind chill effect.

  1. Yes, UV rays do bounce off water. (And snow even much more so.)

  2. Just to reinforce Philster’s point: If anything it might make the room warmer since the fan motor is producing heat. It makes people feel cooler. There is usually no point, and not a good idea, to leave a ceiling fan running in a room when there are no people (or pets) in it.

I don’t think that water reflects UV much, but it does absorb it. To clarify: It’s the parts of you above the water that burn, right?