atmospheric moisture - university of idaho · atmospheric rivers –narrow filaments (typically...
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Atmospheric Moisture
0.001% of all water on Earth is stored in the atmosphere
You drink this
Net Source of Water
Net Sink of Water
Rainfall’s Origins: Salty or Fresh?
The percentage of annual precipitation over land that originally vaporized from the ocean, averaged over 15 years.
Measures of Humidity
• Humidity: measure of how much water vapor is in the air
• Four ways to express humidity– Vapor Pressure (mb)
– Specific (g/kg)
– Relative (%)
– Dew Point (Temperature)
Maximum Humidity
• Saturation Vapor Pressure: maximum amount of water vapor a specific body of air can hold at a given temperature
Warmer air can hold more H2O• Air at 20C can hold 3x as much H2O
as air at 0C.• Saturation requires less H2O for ice
than water
Vapor Pressure: What is measured
Vapor Pressure Deficit: Saturation Vapor Pressure minus Vapor Pressure
Specific Humidity
• Specific humidity: (actual) measurable amount of water vapor in a parcel of air (g/kg). Typical value is 10-15 g/kg– Similar to “vapor pressure”
Relative Humidity
• Relative humidity: ratio between specific and maximum humidity
• Expressed as a percentage relative to saturation, at 100% relative humidity, air is saturated
• Relative humidity =
Specific humidity (or vapor pressure)
Maximum humidity (or saturation vapor pressure)
X 100
Relative Humidity
Unsaturated Saturated
30° C 15° C 5° C
The vapor pressure generally varies only slightly through the day; so the relative humidity varies inversely with temperature.
How Humid is it?
Dew-point temperature:Temperature at which air with a given amount of moisture reaches saturation
Maximum Humidity tells us at what temperature this will occur
Dew Point Temperature
Average surface dewpoint for July.
How Humid is it?
Dew point temperature: temperature when air is saturated w/respect to water vapor for a given amount of moisture in the air
Precipitable WaterAKA “Total Column Water Vapor”
Depth of liquid water if all moisture in the vertical column of the atmosphere was condensed into liquidGlobal average: 2.5cm
• Air is cooled– Saturation vapor pressure decreases while actual vapor
pressure remains constant– How do we cool air?
• Water vapor added at a constant temperature– Vapor pressure increases while saturation vapor pressure
remains constant– How do we add water vapor?
How Air Becomes Saturated
Monitoring Humidity
• Hygrometer– Measures the water vapor
concentration of air
• Wet bulb temperature
• Hair hygrometer– Relates changes in length
of a humid hair to humidity – Hair lengthens as relative
humidity increases
Wet Bulb Temperature
• Temperature at which at wet object will cool to after evaporative cooling
• Typically less than ambient temperature, warmer than dew-point temperature
• Wet bulb depression: Air temperature (dry-bulb) minus wet bulb temperature
Atmospheric Lifting and Precipitation
To form precipitation, air must move upward and be cooled by adiabatic processes.
Four ways for air to move upward:
1. Convection
2.Orographic
3. Convergence
4.Frontal
Atmospheric Lifting
Convectional lifting: bubble of warm air rises within an unstable body of air– Environmental lapse
rate exceed dry/moist adiabatic lapse rate
Atmospheric Lifting
• Orographic lifting: occurs when a flowing body of air encounters a mountain range
Rain Shadowed Deserts of central Washington
Atmospheric Rivers
– Narrow filaments (typically 150-300 miles wide) of enhanced water vapor in the atmosphere that exist in the warm sector of extratropical cyclones
– Characterized by warm temperature, high moisture content and strong low level winds
– Most of the water vapor is contained below 700mb
– 30-50% of the average annual precipitation for the West Coast
Atmospheric Lifting
• Convergent lifting: occurs when large bodies of air meet
Atmospheric Lifting
• Frontal lifting: occurs along the boundary of contrasting air masses