How would this impact humidity. Absolute humidity would increase as you add moisture to the air.
Relative Humidity would depend on the absolute temperature. If the Dry bulb, or absolute, temperature stays the same then more moisture in the air would mean a net increase in relative humidity. If dry bulb temperatures go up then knowing if more humidity with higher dry bulb temperature means a higher or lower relative humidity gets more complex. You would need more data on exactly how added moisture is there and how much warmer the air is. If absolute or dry bulb temperatures drop then relative humidity goes up even if the amount total amount of moisture in the air remains static.
I hope this helps. Looks up Psychrometric charts and how to read them if you would like more specific details.
It will increase evaporation and cause the earth's climate to stabilize. That means an expansion of the tropical zones into latitudes closer to the poles. This would be due to increased cloud cover creating an enhancement the green house effect. Also it would rain more so expansion of tropical rain forest zones too.
Climate realist forgets that an increase in rain = increase in vegetation which results in more humidity. Also an increase in ocean temp will increase CO2 outgassing from the ocean. Why are tropical rain forests so freaking wet and lack a significant difference in day and night temperatures. This is an example of climate stability. It happened on a global scale during the Eocene Epoch 50+ million years ago. lol some people see reality from what looks good on paper rather than going out and looking at the real world.
The saturation vapor pressure of water goes up about 7% with each degree Celsius increase, and the average relative humidity is something like 80%, so water vapor might be expected to increase by about 5.5% with each degree increase. Other things being equal, This could lead to greater rainfall (where it rains), stronger hurricanes (which are fueled by water vapor) and other effects.
Evaporation rate will rise. But because water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, the amount of water that air could "hold" will increase to a larger extent. Absolute humidity will go up and relative humidity will go down.
This decrease in relative humidity is why warming leads to fewer clouds.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/CloudC...
James
I haven't forgotten. But who said anything about an increase in rain. A decrease in clouds = a decrease in rain. Where do you think rain comes from?
What a 'cool' question! When you increase the evaporation rate you lower the temperature because of that, and that would cause global cooling. That would really upset those guys who want the planet to reach the boiling temperature in this century. (Like they're going to live to see that happen by the end of this century anyway, ha ha ha.How many of us will live that long?)
Evaporation rates would rise, so humidity rates might rise as well. (I think so anyway)
Hello Anicholle,
As the temperature of the oceans rise this means that the water molecules have more kinetic energy, this makes it easier for them to break free of the bonds that hold them together as a liquid. When these bonds break the water molecules can escape into the atmosphere as water vapour, i.e. evapouration occurs.
Energy is needed for evapouration (the enthalpy or latent heat of vaporisation – ?Hvap) and this energy can come from the heat content of the ocean or it can be imparted from the Sun (insolation) or from the atmosphere if this is warmer than the ocean (2nd law of TD).
The rate of evapouration amount can be calculated using the formula below:
Gs = Θ A (Xs - X) / t
? Where Gs is the evapouration per second measured in kg
? Θ is the coefficient of evapouration measured in kg per m2 per hour expressed as (T1 + T2 v) where T1 is the start temperature, T2 is the end temperature and v is the velocity of air over the water. Nominally T1 has a value of 17°C
? Xs is the humidity ratio in saturated air measured in kg vapour per kg air
? X is the humidity ratio in the air measured in kg vapour per kg air
? t is the time in seconds (having already used 3600 in Θ then in this example the value would be 3600).
The amount of heat energy in the water doesn’t actually change all that much. The specific heat capacity of ice is 4.210 and of boiling water it’s 4.219 – this is kilojoules per kilogram per Kelvin. It’s the per Kelvin part that’s important. If the ocean is 17°C (290K) a 1°C (1K) increase brings it to 18°C (291K) and so the increase in SHC is as good as 291/290 or about 0.3%.
We also have to take account of saturation vapour points in the atmosphere. As the air warms the SVP increases and so it’s able to hold more water vapour before reaching saturation and the point at which condensation begins.
What we’ll see therefore is an acceleration in the rate of evapouration which in turn accelerates the entire hydrological cycle. Whilst the SVP of the atmosphere will have slightly increased the capacity for retaining H2O, this extra capacity will be so insignificant as to be of no consequence. Precipitation will therefore increase in the same proportions that evapouration increases.
If you factor all the numbers into the equation then you get a value of about 8%, that is: 8% more evapouration and 8% more precipitation (the actual number is nearly 4 trillion extra tonnes per annum).
For convenience, the overall global precipitation could be considered to be 100mm per year, as the oceans have warmed and global warming enhances the water cycle this has now reached approx 108mm per year.
This increased precipitation means more snow and more rain. But… warmer temperatures means that where there would once have been snowfall there could now be rainfall instead. As a result, snowfall in the coldest places and the coldest seasons has increased but in the more moderate places and the less cold seasons it’s decreased.
Globally rainfall has increased, the exceptions being Polar climate zones where it’s never warm enough for rain, all the increased precipitation here is in the form of snow.
Temperature is the sole driver of all global weather systems, as the amount of heat energy in the weather systems changes there is disruption and this means that not all places are seeing the increased rainfall.
Whilst the global average is an 8% increase, some places have seen significantly more than their fair share whilst others have become considerably drier. As a rough rule of thumb, moderate climate zones are now wetter and arid zones are now drier.
There has also been a seasonal change in precipitation patterns with more of the increased precipitation falling in the winter months, thus winters are wetter and summers are drier.
Other changes relate to the intensity and frequency of precipitation events. More frequently we’re seeing periods of intense snow or rain, when they do arrive they tend to persist for longer, but we’re also seeing longer periods of hot or stable weather between these events.
If the temperature of the ocean were to increase as a result of global warming, what impact would that have on evaporation rates and the relative humidity of air? What kinds of weather-related changes might this lead to?
