What term describes the amount of heat required to change a substance's temperature?

The term that describes the amount of heat required to change a substance's temperature is specific heat. Specific heat is a physical property of a substance that indicates the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a unit mass of that substance by one degree Celsius (or one kelvin). This property is crucial in understanding how different materials respond to heat and how they store thermal energy.

Each substance has a unique specific heat value, which influences how it behaves in various thermal conditions. For example, water has a high specific heat, which means it can absorb a lot of heat without a significant rise in temperature, making it essential in climate regulation and biological processes.

In contrast, latent heat refers to the heat required for a substance to undergo a phase change without a change in temperature, such as melting or boiling. Thermal conductivity measures a material's ability to conduct heat, while enthalpy is a measure of the total energy of a thermodynamic system, including internal energy and the energy related to pressure and volume. These terms are related to thermal energy and heat transfer but do not specifically define the heat needed to raise a substance's temperature as specific heat does.