Relative Humidity is a measure of how “full” the atmosphere is of moisture and i
ID: 803053 • Letter: R
Question
Relative Humidity is a measure of how “full” the atmosphere is of moisture and is dependent upon how “large” the container of air is. In the atmosphere, the size of the container is dependent upon its temperature. Complete this analogy to explain how the relative humidity of an air parcel would change as the temperature increases or decreases with time. Nancy French and 3 of her fellow nurses in Fredericton, New Brunswick is going to watch Mike (Nancy’s S.O.) compete in a bonspiel. One of the nurses mixed up 1 ½ liters of her famous spiked eggnog in a 2 liter bottle to keep them warm during the matches. Since Nancy doesn’t drink the nurses split the eggnog 3 ways, transferring it into 3 500ml (.5l) bottles, one for each nurse. IF the mixing bottle had a humidity of 75% (75% full), what would be the humidity or “fullness” of the bottles each of the 3 nurses was given?. HINT!!! Draw a picture of this!!!!! 5 points for telling me what a “Bonspiel” is
Explanation / Answer
Relative humidity indicates how close is the air to be saturated. It is defined as the ratio of amount of water vapour in the air to the holding capacity of air that particular temperature. This is measured in percentage. The relative humidity is 100% when the air is saturated and the rate of evaporation will be very slow.
Since relative humidity depends on both temperature and the water vapour holding capacity of container or size of container in this case which would depend on the temperature of the air. Initially the temperature of the liquid was high but after splitting the liquid into 3 bottles the temperature changes because it becomes relatively less now. Since temperature decreases the relative humidity also decreases.The relative humidity of liquid decreases form 100% -20% as the temperature increases from 5-30 degree celsius.
The relative humidity will increase by a factor of 1/3 in each of the 3 bottles or becomes 100% when the temperature is reduced.