Air Humidity Measurement

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Author: Hans-Jürgen Schwarz

English Translation by Sandra Leithäuser
back to Climatic measurements

Measuring humidity overview

Introduction

Air is a mixture of gases. The main ones are summarized in Table 1. In addition to these, air always contains a small amount of water, which exists in three states of matter:

  • solid: ice, hail, snow
  • liquid: rain, fog, dew
  • gas: water vapor



Table 1: Composition of air
Gas Symbol Content in Vol. %
Nitrogen
Oxigen
Argon
N2
O2
Ar
78
21
0,8
Krypton
Xenon
Neon
Helium
Hydrogen
Carbon dioxide
Methane
Ozone
Kr
Xe
Ne
He
H2
CO2
CH4
O3
Trace gases


Water is the only gas in the atmosphere that is present in its three states, gas, liquid and solid. For buildings, this leads to some undesirable phenomena such as condensation, corrosion and frost. Both temperature and humidity are the main parameters needed to describe ambient conditions and both influence our well-being significantly.