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Water vapor can also be indirect evidence supporting the presence of extraterrestrial liquid water in the case of some planetary mass objects. Water vapor, which reacts to temperature changes, is referred to as a 'feedback', because it amplifies the effect of forces that initially cause the warming. Therefore, it is a greenhouse gas. [2]
This is illustrated in the vapor pressure chart (see right) that shows graphs of the vapor pressures versus temperatures for a variety of liquids. [7] At the normal boiling point of a liquid, the vapor pressure is equal to the standard atmospheric pressure defined as 1 atmosphere, [ 1 ] 760 Torr, 101.325 kPa, or 14.69595 psi.
The boiling point of water is the temperature at which the saturated vapor pressure equals the ambient pressure. Water supercooled below its normal freezing point has a higher vapor pressure than that of ice at the same temperature and is, thus, unstable. Calculations of the (saturation) vapor pressure of water are commonly used in meteorology.
Using the classical definition of advection, moisture advection is defined as: =in which V is the horizontal wind vector, and is the density of water vapor. However, water vapor content is usually measured in terms of mixing ratio (mass fraction) in reanalyses or dew point (temperature to partial vapor pressure saturation, i.e. relative humidity to 100%) in operational forecasting.
In technical terms, the dew point is the temperature at which the water vapor in a sample of air at constant barometric pressure condenses into liquid water at the same rate at which it evaporates. [7] At temperatures below the dew point, the rate of condensation will be greater than that of evaporation, forming more liquid water.
The definition of a w is where p is the partial water vapor pressure in equilibrium with the solution, and p* is the (partial) vapor pressure of pure water at the same temperature. An alternate definition can be a w ≡ l w x w {\displaystyle a_{w}\equiv l_{w}x_{w}} where l w is the activity coefficient of water and x w is the mole fraction of ...
The corresponding depletion of water vapor causes the droplets to evaporate, meaning that the ice crystals grow at the droplets' expense. These large crystals are an efficient source of precipitation, since they fall through the atmosphere due to their mass, and may collide and stick together in clusters, or aggregates.
Water vapor concentration for this gas mixture is 0.4%. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas in the Earth's atmosphere, responsible for 70% of the known absorption of incoming sunlight, particularly in the infrared region, and about 60% of the atmospheric absorption of thermal radiation by the Earth known as the greenhouse effect. [25]