Like what is the difference between cold and warm air besides the temperature, and why does the temperature matter?
In: Planetary Science
You can imagine air like a bunch of little balls representing the molecules.
Warm air has those balls moving around faster. Part of the warmth is from those tiny air molecules ramming into things. Faster molecules can ram into things and keep more energy. Faster molecules also have more “space” between them. That’s more room for water.
Part of how water gets into air is those air molecules slam into water so hard it dislodges one of the water molecules and carries it away. That water molecule would *really* like to find other water molecules, join them again, then be a liquid. But if air molecules keep smacking into it, they’ll keep knocking it away from other water molecules so it can’t.
The faster the air molecules are moving, the more water molecules they can smack around and stop from forming into liquid again. It kind of works both ways, too: if hot air meets cold water the area around the water ends up as very humid but also much colder air. This is sort of why convection ovens cook differently than normal ovens but that’s a different question!
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