Humidity - Climate

Climate

See also: Greenhouse Effect, Precipitation (meteorology), and Humid subtropical climate

While humidity itself is a climate variable, it also interacts strongly with other climate variables. The humidity is affected by winds and by rainfall. At the same time, humidity affects the energy budget and thereby influences temperatures in two major ways. First, water vapor in the atmosphere contains "latent" energy. During transpiration or evaporation, this latent heat is removed from surface liquid, cooling the earth's surface. This is the biggest non-radiative cooling effect at the surface. It compensates for roughly 70% of the average net radiative warming at the surface. Second, water vapor is the most important of all greenhouse gases. Water vapor, like a green lens that allows green light to pass through it but absorbs red light, is a "selective absorber". Along with other greenhouse gases, water vapor is transparent to most solar energy, as you can literally see. But it absorbs the infrared energy emitted (radiated) upward by the earth's surface, which is the reason that humid areas experience very little nocturnal cooling but dry desert regions cool considerably at night. This selective absorption causes the greenhouse effect. It raises the surface temperature substantially above its theoretical radiative equilibrium temperature with the sun, and water vapor is the cause of more of this warming than any other greenhouse gas.

The most humid cities on earth are generally located closer to the equator, near coastal regions. Cities in South and Southeast Asia are among the most humid, such as Kolkata, Chennai and Cochin in India, the cities of Manila in the Philippines, Mogadishu in Somalia and Bangkok in Thailand and extremely humid Lahore in Pakistan: these places experience extreme humidity during their rainy seasons combined with warmth giving the feel of a lukewarm sauna. Darwin, Australia experiences an extremely humid wet season from December to April. Shanghai and Hong Kong in China also have an extreme humid period in their summer months. Kuala Lumpur and Singapore have very high humidity all year round because of their proximity to water bodies and the equator and overcast weather. Perfectly clear days are dependent largely upon the season in which one decides to travel. During the South-west and North-east Monsoon seasons (respectively, late May to September and November to March), expect heavy rains and a relatively high humidity post-rainfall. Outside the monsoon seasons, humidity is high (in comparison to countries North of the Equator), but completely sunny days abound. In cooler places such as Northern Tasmania, Australia, high humidity is experienced all year due to the ocean between mainland Australia and Tasmania. In the summer the hot dry air is absorbed by this ocean and the temperature rarely climbs above 35 °C (95 °F).

In the United States the most humid cities, strictly in terms of relative humidity, are Forks and Olympia, Washington. This fact may come as a surprise to many, as the climate in this region rarely exhibits the discomfort usually associated with high humidity. This is because high dew points play a more significant role than relative humidity in discomfort, and so the air in these western cities usually does not feel "humid" as a result. In general, dew points are much lower in the Western U.S. than those in the Eastern U.S.

The highest dew points in the US are found in coastal Florida and Texas. When comparing Key West and Houston, two of the most humid cities from those states, coastal Florida seems to have the higher dew points on average. However, Houston lacks the coastal breeze present in Key West, and, as a much larger city, it suffers from the urban heat island effect. A dew point of 88 °F (31 °C) was recorded in Moorhead Minnesota on July 19, 2011, with a heat index of 133.5, although dew points over 80 °F (27 °C) are rare there. The US city with the lowest annual humidity is Las Vegas, Nevada, averaging 39% for a high and 21% as a low.