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Absolute Humidity

Absolute Humidity

 

Absolute humidity is the mass of water vapour in a given volume of air, expressed as:

 

Absolute humidity = mass of water vapour/volume of air

 

Normally expressed as grams of water vapor in a cubic meter of air it represents the water vapor density in the parcel. However, because the volume of an air parcel changes as it rises or desends, its absolute humidity changes, despite the vapor content staying the same. It is because of this that absolute humidity is not very often used in atmospheric studies.

 

© 2015 by UniMet.

* All information on this site has come from lecture notes and the associated course text books: 'Atmospheric Science: An introductory survey, 2nd edition, J. M. Hobbs and P. V. Wallace' and 'Meteorology Today: An Introduction to Weather, Climate and the Environment, 10th edition (International), C. D. Ahrens.' Some sections may have been rephrased and altered slightly but all content came from the above mentioned sources unless otherwise stated. 

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