A student asked me about why the ocean stays liquid even thought it gets way below freezing during the winter months. "How come snow melts in the water even though it's so cold out?" she said.
Well, water has a much higher specific heat than most land materials. You can go from summer like conditions to winter like conditions in a flash but the water temps will barely change over the same time period. That's because water needs a lot more heat energy to raise its temperature. While land can heat up with only one day's worth of heat energy from the sun, the water needs to collect many day's worth of heat energy to start getting warmer.
Hence why we have colder water temps in the summer while the land is hot and warmer water temps in the winter when the land is cold. See how science helps you to understand things that you may have been confused with?
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