Moisture Relationships

Troposphere
 Moisture Relationships
• Atmospheric Moisture is necessary for Precipitation.
That moisture is moved to the atmosphere by
Evaporation and Transpiration
 Humidity
• The presence of moisture (water vapor, an
invisible gas) in the atmosphere is measured
by the humidity of the air.
• Humidity and condensation are closely related
as condensation inevitably occurs when the
air is saturated with moisture (100%
humidity). 585 calories/gram

“Latent Heat of Condensation”

Gas to liquid droplet,
heat is released to the
atmosphere, air molecules
move faster, move apart, less dense, rise
 Some useful units
• One Gram is the mass of liquid water in a little cube, one
centimeter on a side.

• A centimeter is less than half an inch. It is 1/100 of a meter.

• A meter is 39.37 inches, so a centimeter is about 0.394

inches

• A mole of anything is 6.023 x 1023

• 1023 means 10x10x10x10x10x … x10 twenty three times

 Relative Humidity and Dew Point
• Absolute humidity measures the amount of water vapor in air.
Grams H2O/m3 of air. This water is a gas, water vapor.

• Relative humidity measures the amount of water vapor in air

relative to the maximum amount of water vapor the air could
hold at that temperature.
• Relative humidity increases with increasing water vapor or
decreasing temperature. Cold air can’t “carry” as much water
vapor as warm air.

• The dew point is the temperature to which a given parcel of

humid air must be cooled, at constant barometric pressure,
for water vapor to condense into liquid water.
 Absolute Humidity
• Absolute humidity measures the amount (mass) of
water in a volume of air. Units are gramsH2O/meters3
• Problem: volume changes as parcel rises

So we will need
Same # grams
in a larger some measures of
volume, so abs. humidity that do
humidity
not depend on
decreases
volume.
 25oC 298.15K
72oF
12oC 285.15K
53.6oF

oC = 5/9(F- 32) K=oC + 273.15

Various Temperature Scales

 Gas Laws
• 1600’s to 1800’s
Pressure times Volume is a constant

Increase Temp, Volume increases

Increase Temp, Pressure increases

Increase moles of gas, Volume increases

• Combined as ideal gas law:

• n= # moles, and R is the universal gas constant
• R = 8.314472 N·m·K−1·mol−1
 Avogadro’s law
Equal volumes of gases at the same temperature and
pressure contain the same number of molecules regardless
of their chemical nature and physical properties. This number
(Avogadro's number) is 6.022 X 1023 . These occupy 22.41 L for all
gases at temperature of 273.15 K (0 °C, 32 °F) and an absolute
pressure of 100 kPa.
Dry air Moist air

Dry air (21%

O2, 78% N2,
1% other )
Md ~ 0.21*32+0.78*28
~ 28.9

Water vapor
(H2O)
Mv = 2*1 + 16 = 18

Moist air is lighter than dry air because number of

molecules is the same for equal volumes, and water is
lighter than O2 or N2
 Moist Air vs. Dry Air 1
• Air with water vapor in it (Moist Air) is lighter than
dry air
Here’s Why:

• When water vapor H2O is added to air, other gases

are pushed aside.
(Avogadro’s Law, # mol/vol = const)

• Recall that dry air is mostly Nitrogen N2 and Oxygen

O2 molecules.
 Moist Air vs. Dry Air 2
OR “why moist air rises”

• Water H2O “weighs” 18 grams per mole.

• Nitrogen N2 “weighs” 28 grams per mole
• Oxygen O2 “weighs” 32 grams per mole
• The number of molecules in air in some volume at
constant T and P is constant.
• Since light water molecules displace much heavier
molecules, air with water vapor in it is “lighter”, less
dense, more buoyant. Moist air rises, forms storms.
 Dalton’s Law of Partial Pressures

John Dalton studied the effect of

gases in a mixture. He observed
that the Total Pressure of a gas
mixture was the sum of the Partial
Pressure of each gas.

P total = P1 + P2 + P3 + .......Pn

The Partial Pressure is defined as

the pressure of a single gas in the
mixture as if that gas alone
occupied the container
 Partial Pressure of water vapor
e or ew
• Partial Pressure is the pressure that would be
exerted on a surface by a gas in a mixture if
the other gases were absent. e = esat(Td)
• The Partial Pressure of water vapor ew is given
by a form of the Ideal Gas Law
e = water vapor pressure in mbars
ew = rRT
w
r = vapor density or absolute hum.
w
R = Dry Air Gas Constant
0.622 R= 2.87 x 103 mbar cm3/g . K
T = absolute temperature Kelvin

• where 0.622 is the ratio of the molecular weights of water

(18) to an average molecular weight for air (28.9).
• 1 mb [mbar, millibar] = 100 Pascals
 Mixing Ratio, w
• Air pressure, P, is the total
pressure that air makes on a
surface
• Ideal gas law relates
pressure to density and P = rR T
absolute temperature T.
• Vapor pressure, e, is the
pressure that water vapor e = rv RvT
exerts on a surface. Rv is the
gas constant for water
vapor
• Mixing Ratio w is the ratio
of vapor mass to dry air =
mass w = rv/rdry
• 0.622 is ratio of mol. wt. of
water vapor to avg mol. wt.
of dry air (=18/28.9)
Notice this mixing ratio doesn’t depend on volume (the v’s in density
cancel) , and so will stay constant as a parcel ascends
 Curve Fits
• Complex situations, such as mixtures of gases,
often defeat modeling because the
assumptions of physical equations aren’t true.

• In this case we do many experiments, plot the

data, and fit a curve to the data.
 Saturation vapor pressure, esat
Saturation vapor pressure occurs when air is holding all the water vapor
that it can at a given air temperature, then RH = 100% and T=Tdew point
Then T dry bulb = T wet bulb

http://hurri.ke
an.edu/~yoh/
calculations/s
atvap/satvap.
html

pws = water vapor saturation

pressure (Pa)
e = the constant 2.718.......
T = dry bulb temperature of
the moist air (K)
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/
water-vapor-saturation-pressure-
air-d_689.html
 Relative Humidity
• The relative humidity of an air-water mixture is
defined as the ratio of the partial pressure of water
vapor in the mixture, called ew or e, to the saturated
vapor pressure of water at a prescribed temperature,
called e*w or esat. I prefer e and esat, respectively.
• Relative humidity is normally expressed as a
percentage and is calculated by using the following
equation:

• This equation is useful for calculating e from esat and

RH
 Appendix C
Saturated Air Properties varies slightly
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-vapor-saturation-pressure-air-d_689.html
e sat
Dry Air Properties at std. atm. sea-level
 Water Vapor Density Curve Fit
• The density of water vapor can be expressed
as:
ρv = 0.0022 pv / T
where
• pv = e =partial pressure water vapor (Pa, N/m2)
• ρv = density water vapor (kg/m3)
• T = absolute dry bulb temperature (K)

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-vapor-saturation-pressure-air-d_689.html
 Specific Humidity, qv
• Specific humidity measures the
mass of water vapor per unit
mass of moist air
• It is dimensionless
• Like mixing ratio, it doesn’t
change with volume.
• We still need the
moist air density.
 Density of Moist Air, rm
• rm = P/RT (1 - 0.378 e /

• We need this to calculate the specific

humidity.
• Derivation in the handout follows this.