21 Chemistry -- Chemical Equilibrium

Why do we sweat more on a humid day?

Why do we sweat more on a humid day?

 

Humidity is the measure of water vapor content in the air. Humidity also is reflected by dew point. Dew point is the temperatures air must be cooled in order to reach saturation.

When you have a high dew point which indicates more moisture present in the air, the body takes a longer time to naturally cool off.

The human body cools off by the process of evaporative cooling. Evaporative cooling is temperature reduction resulting from the evaporation of a liquid. Also, on a more scientific note, latent heat is moved from the body to the environment.

So when the atmosphere is already saturated, your body can not properly cool off naturally. This is why our sweat seems to just stay on our body because the rate at which it is evaporating is much slower than what it would be if we had drier conditions. But the rate at which water or sweat evaporates depends on how much water is already in the air. On dry days, sweat evaporates quickly, which means it also carries away heat faster. On humid days, when the air is already saturated with water, sweat evaporates more slowly. Hence, we sweat more on humid days.


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