4 Water in the Atmosphere 4.1 Introduction ‘The atmosphere is the smallest reservoir of water on the planet Earth, containing only 0.001% of the total mass of water present. In comparison, the ocean contains 96.8%, the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland contain 2.0% and the freshwater reservoirs (groundwater, lakes, and rivers) contribute the remaining percentage. However, the effect of the water present in the atmosphere is by no means small. It has already been shown that water vapour in the atmosphere is an important absorber of both solar and long- wave planetary radiation and that, upon condensation, liquid water droplets can both reflect solar radiation back into space and intercept long-wave radiation from the surface and the atmosphere. When water vapour condenses there is a large release of latent heat. For each kilogram of condensed water produced, 2.4MJ of energy are released. ‘The input of energy into the atmosphere, from condensation of water vapour, is equivalent to 23% of the solar flux incident on the Earth or 78Wm"? on average. Itis, therefore, a major source of energy for driving the circulation of the atmosphere. For example, trade-wind circulations of both hemispheres are enhanced by the release of latent heat in the inter-tropical convergence zones (ITCZ) which straddle the thermal equator. The latent heat of condensation of water vapour may be released many thousands of kilometres away from where the evaporation of the water molecules took place and the wind Circulation in the lower troposphere is important in determining the location of the energy release. Globally, the precipitation rate must balance the evaporation rate but relatively small variations in the wind circulation can drastically influence the spatial distribution of precipitation and produce devastating effects on agriculturally-based economies. ‘The Atmosphere and Osan’ A Physical traction, Third Eaton, Nell, Walls 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Lid Published 2012 by John Wile de Sons, Ltd84. The Atmosphere and Ocean 4.2 The moist atmosphere s the phase diagram for water within the range of atmospheric The curve AB is the saturated vapour pressure (SVP) over a plane ice surface and the curve BC corresponds to the SVP over a plane liquid water surface. The point B represents the point where water vapour, liquid water and ice can co-exist in equilibrium. It is known as the triple point. Let us first consider the range of vapour pressure that can exist in the atmosphere. At temperatures of ~50°C, typical of winter-time at the surface in the polar regions, the SVP over ice is only 0.04 hPa, whilst at 30°C, typical of the equatorial regions, the SVP approaches 43 hPa. Between 0°C and 30°C, the SVP approximately doubles for each 10°C temperature rise. Though there is a large range of water-vapour concentration in the atmosphere, the maximum value of the SVP is only 4.3% of the surface pressure. This is important because it allows water vapour to be included in the equation of state as an ideal gas. At higher concentrations of water vapour this assumption would not be valid. In the atmosphere, liquid water can exist below the freezing point and this is knowns a supercooled state. The SVP over a supercooled water surface is higher than the SVP over an ice surface; thus, a vapour in equilibrium with a supercooled water surface would be supersaturated with respect to an ice surface and water vapour would condense preferentially onto the ice surface (Figure 4.9). This is an important process in the formation of precipitation in cold clouds and will be discussed in Section 4.5. Water vapour is a gas with a molecular weight of 18 a.m.u., compared with a mean molecular weight of 29 a.m.u. for dry air. Hence a mixture of water vapour and dry air will have a lower mass than the equivalent volume of dry Vapour Pressure 278.16K Temperature Figure 4.1. Phase diagram for water in the vapour iqud and solid phases showing the triple pointWater in the Atmosphere 85 air, assuming that temperature and pressure remain constant. The equation of state for moist air therefore requires another variable, namely the mass of water vapour, to determine the relationship between pressure, temperature and density. The equation of state for moist air gives the mean molecular weight, 77, of a mixture of dry air of mass Mg and of water vapour of mass M, ina given volume as: ay My/Mg |), A ma(Ma + MQ) LJ where mig and my are the molecular weights of dry air and water vapour respectively. The concentration of water in the atmosphere is defined by a mixing ratio, 4g, where g=M/Ma (42) The mixing ratio is dimensionless, but meteorologists often express it in terms of grams of water vapour per kilogram of dry air. Since, for a given volume, masses are proportional to densities, the above equation may be rewritten as: 9= Pipa (43) where py and py are the densities of water vapour and dry air respectively. ‘The ideal gas equations for water vapour and dry air yield the following: aa ) where p is the total pressure of the dry air and water vapour and ¢ is the vapour pressure of water. Water vapour is not in general an ideal gas but at low concentrations, such as found in the atmosphere, the approximation is a valid one. Substituting equations 4.4 and 4.5 into 43 yields: em 1 7a(m) as Substituting for My/Ma in equation 4.1 gives: 1 _ 1 [tt gima/my) aml | an