HUMIDITY

2-16 Properties of Water Vapor

Vaporization or evaporation the process by which liquid water is converted into vapor the process whereby a solid is transformed directly to vapor state.

Sublimation direct transformation from ice to vapor, and vice versa

Condensation the process by which vapor changes to liquid or solid state.

Partial Pressure this exerts in any mixture of gasses. Vapor Pressure the partial pressure exerted by water vapor.

p initial total pressure p final pressure e vapor pressure

Saturated when the maximum amount of water vapor for a given temperature is contained in a given space.

Saturation vapor pressure the pressure exerted b y the vapor in a saturated space.
Latent heat of vaporization is the amount of heat absorbed by a unit mass of a substance, without change in temperature, while passing from the liquid to the vapor state.

The heat of vaporization of water Hv in kilojoules per gram varies with temperature but can be determined accurately up to 40C by. Where T is temperature in degree Celsius.

Hv = 2.50 0.00236T

Latent heat of fusion is the amount of heat required to convert one gram of ice to liquid water at the same temperature.
Latent heat if sublimation is the amount of heat required to convert one gram of ice into vapor at the same temperature without passing through the intermediate liquid state.

the specific gravity of water vapor is 0.622 times that of dry air at the same temperature and pressure. The density of water vapor in grams per cubic centimeter

Where T = Is the absolute temperature in Kelvins (K) Rg = the specific gas constant for dry air

the density of dry air Pd in grams per cubic centimeter is

Where:

Pd = is the pressure in kilopascals.

This equation shows that moist air is lighter than dry air.

2-17 Terminology
Computation of saturation vapor pressure:

where: Es is in kilopascal and T is in degree celsius.

To convert pressure over water to that over ice, or vice versa.

where T is in degree Celsius.

Dewpoint ( Td) is the temperature at which space becomes saturated when air is cooled under constant pressure and with constant water-vapor content.

Where T is in degree Celsius and X is the compliment of the relative humidity expressed as a decimal fraction, or X = 100-f/100

Relative humidity (f) is the poercentage ratio of the actual to the saturation vapor pressure and is therefore a ratio of the amount of moisture in a given space to the amount the space could contain if saturated.

Relative humidity can also be computed directly from air temperature T and dewpoint Td by an approximate formula. Where temperatures are in degree celsius. The formula approximates relative humidity to within 0.6 % in the range od 25 to 45 degree celsius.

The specific humidity , usually expressed in grams per kilogram, is the mass of water vapor per unit mass of moist air:

Where Pa is the total pressure of the air in kilopascals.

The mixing ratio Wr, is the mass of water vapor per unit mass of perfectly dry air in a humid texture. Usually expressed in grams per kilogram of dry air, it is given by

The total amount of water vapor in a layer of air is often expressed as the depth of precipitable water Wp, in millimeters.
A convinient formula in computing Wp in millimeters is

2-18 Measurement of Humidity Measurements of humidity in the surface layers of the atmosphere are made with a Psychrometer.

HAIR HYGROMETER

hygrothermograph

Dewpoint hygrometer

dew cell hygrometer

spectral hygrometer