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Humidity Measurements

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Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires
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Atmospheric moisture

Definition

Humidity is a variable that describes the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.

Introduction: Water Vapor in the Atmosphere

The amount of water vapor that the atmosphere can hold depends on air temperature and pressure and is governed by the ideal gas law and thermodynamics. Humidity can be described in terms of absolute humidity, specific humidity, relative humidity, dew point temperature, wet bulb temperature, and vapor pressure (Table 1).

Table 1 Metrics of humidity in the atmosphere. Definitions from Shuttleworth (2012)

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Correspondence to Petter Nyman .

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Nyman, P. (2018). Humidity Measurements. In: Manzello, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_116-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_116-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51727-8

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