When you step out of the water after swimming and feel the chill as a breeze hits your body, that is nature's air conditioning system, working through evaporative cooling. The water evaporating from your skin creates the cooling. After the water has evaporated, your body heats up again under a hot sun; so you take another dip in the water and start the cooling process all over again.
People understood the value of evaporative cooling centuries ago. One thing they would do was wet burlap or other suitable material and hang them in the windows. When the air blew through the material it caused the water to evaporate, therefore creating a cooling effect. When the material dried or if there was no wind, the cooling ceased.
Today manufacturers typically produce evaporative coolers by having a fan or blower pull air through specially designed wetted pads. A reservoir below the pads contains water, and typically a water pump distributes the water through the pads. The fan draws the air through the wetted pads blowing the resultant cooled air into the area to be cooled. As the evaporation takes place the water that was not used during the evaporation process is returned to the reservoir and is re-circulated again and eventually is depleted.
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