And this is apparently how the term was coined:

"Tonnage The unit of measure used in air conditioning to describe the
cooling capacity of a system. One ton of cooling is based on the amount of
heat needed to melt one ton (2000 lbs.) of ice in a 24 hour period. One ton
of cooling is equal to 12,000 Btu/hr."

from: http://www.liebert.com/support/glossary/air_gloss.asp

Smarty

"Smarty" wrote in message
...
12,000 BTU/hr of cooling capacity.


"Abe" wrote in message
...
I tried looking it up on the web, but couldn't find anything that
describes exactly what it means.