Why do frozen liquids thaw faster in water as opposed to at room temperature?
It depends what is your room temperature. All the frozen liquids (water based, particularly) have got temperatures nearly zero or less. Water temperature is always higher than zero, some 20 to 40 deg Celsius. The air Temperature also might be same for the air. But when the frozen material is kept in water, it is connected thermally to the water directly and heat starts to flow into the frozen material quickly due to conduction. Since the specific heat of water is high (1.0) it can provide more heat for the frozen thing to melt. In case of air, the density of air is less, the heat capacity or specific heat of heat is low, the process of heat transfer is more convection than conduction. The air is also a good insulator due to a large gap (vacuum) between molecules of air. All these together causes the frozen liquids thaw faster in water compared to the air in room temperature.
