Is the rate at which water evaporates more dependent on relative % humidity or dew point temperature? eli5
In: 1
Relative humidity.
As an example, take a dewpoint of 60. If the temperature is also 60, the air is saturated with water, and standing water won’t evaporate at all. (More properly, it’ll evaporate at the same rate it condenses out of the air, so there’s no *net* evaporation.) If the temperature is 90, it will evaporate, despite the dewpoint not having changed at all.
I’m fairly certain that relative humidity is the driving factor. Dew point is a function of the relative humidity anyhow, so while that may be relevant, I believe they are relevant only insofar as what they say about the relative humidity.
They’re both kind of important. You need energy to vaporize water and you need a receptive volume of air to take in that evaporated water.
You need a wetbulb temperature to calculate humidity though, so I would say that the dewpoint temperature is the more important of the two.
Look up some of Howard Penman’s equations. He did a lot of this work back in the 1940’s.
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