Why is moist air less dense than dry air?
Would it more sense that drier is less dense since it is less concentrated than moist air? In this tutorial, we will learn why moist air is less dense, because this baffles many forecasters. In order to understand this, we need to know a little bit of basic chemistry, and need to know about diatomic elements. As most of us know, gases are extremely light and need to be in pairs to be more stable. There are seven diatomic elements and they are: H2, N2, O2, F2, Cl2, I2, Br2, which are: hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, chlorine, iodine and bromine. The most common gases in our atmosphere are Nitrogen and oxygen. Now Oxygen has an approximate atomic mass of 16, and nitrogen has an approximate atomic mass of 14. Now because they are in diatomic (di=double) , the typical atomic mass for oxygen is 32, and is 28 for nitrogen. Water Vapor H2O has an atomic mass of 18. That is because Hydrogen only has only an atomic mass of 1 since it is the lightest element, and remember, Oxygen has an at
