What type of heat measurement is used to quantify energy changes in heating and cooling processes?

The British Thermal Unit (Btu) is the correct choice because it is a standard unit of measurement used specifically to quantify the amount of heat energy required to raise or lower the temperature of a substance. One Btu is defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit at a constant pressure. This unit is widely used in the fields of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) to assess the energy changes during heating and cooling processes.

Understanding the role of Btu is crucial in HVAC applications because it allows technicians and engineers to calculate the energy requirements for systems, thus enabling them to design and analyze heating and cooling systems effectively. While specific heat, thermal conductivity, and latent heat are important concepts in thermodynamics, they serve different purposes: specific heat defines the amount of energy needed to change the temperature of a unit mass of a substance, thermal conductivity describes how well heat is transmitted through a material, and latent heat pertains to the heat involved in phase changes. None of these specifically quantify the energy changes in heating or cooling processes as effectively as the British Thermal Unit does.