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Old cars often have deteriorating interiors(not my Honda) and I got to thinking why. Obviously the sun is a big culprit, the sun will fade dashes, make leather crack, plastic bubble, etc.

Why does this happen? Because all the moisture has been evaporated off the surface, it has essentially been dehydrated.

So, how do we keep things hydrated? With hydration of course, which then begs the question, how much hydration? Too much and your glass gets foggy on the inside and you start getting nasty musky/moldy smells, too little and the interior starts to degrade.

I mean if you put a small dixie cup in a car, and fill it 1/4 way, and leave the car parked in the sun, some of that water will evaporate to steam increasing the humidity in the cabin. Now humidity in the air does have the benefit of limiting radiative heating from the sun, and it also has the benefit of saturating interior parts limiting sun based dehydration. But there's the problem of smell and mustiness that comes from swamp weather.

Old cars often have deteriorating interiors(not my Honda) and I got to thinking why. Obviously the sun is a big culprit, the sun will fade dashes, make leather crack, plastic bubble, etc. Why does this happen? Because all the moisture has been evaporated off the surface, it has essentially been dehydrated. So, how do we keep things hydrated? With hydration of course, which then begs the question, how much hydration? Too much and your glass gets foggy on the inside and you start getting nasty musky/moldy smells, too little and the interior starts to degrade. I mean if you put a small dixie cup in a car, and fill it 1/4 way, and leave the car parked in the sun, some of that water will evaporate to steam increasing the humidity in the cabin. Now humidity in the air does have the benefit of limiting radiative heating from the sun, and it also has the benefit of saturating interior parts limiting sun based dehydration. But there's the problem of smell and mustiness that comes from swamp weather.

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[–] • 0 pt

No but I have experience in vaporization and using steam to sterilize,

You and the millions that use an autoclave.

You're missing the point. Water vapor in the air isn't Steam. If you can't grasp that basic point, we're done here and you can simply go on believing whatever you want.

If Steam is simply water in the air, then every physics textbook is wrong and every power plant that relies on steam turbines is wrong. Your link for a free-air vapor condenser doesn't have anything to do with steam, those are as old as time itself.

[–] • 0 pt

The point is that there's water in the air, that water vapor is steam, that is water is diffused into the air as a gas. I can prove this at a molecular level.

[–] • 0 pt (edited )

I feel like you're trolling at this point.

You're missing the absolute most basic fact of steam. Steam exists because of two variables. Pressure and Temperature. If you don't satisfy both of those variables, you have water vapor, not Steam. Steam exists because enough energy has been placed into the water at a given pressure to make it's molecules break free and become an invisible gas. Once it loses that energy, it becomes water vapor, or water. That's a molecular fact, and you can't prove otherwise unless you're dealing with supercritical steam.

There is no other point. Once the Steam loses the energy that made it Steam, it condenses back to water vapor, and eventually, water. In your car example, you're not putting enough energy into the water quick enough to make steam, you're just evaporating water. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's steam, it means there's not enough water for the given mass of air for it to condense into visible droplets. It's still water vapor in the air, not Steam, because you don't have enough energy left to keep it as Steam.

You go ahead and believe that because there's water in the air it's always steam, and I'll believe my copy of Steam / It's generation and uses.

[–] • 0 pt

Steam is water vapor. Pressure exists, last I checked its 14.7 psi at sea level. Micro disturbances in pressure cause water to evaporate, that is turn to steam. This is entirely consistent with quantum mechanics. Pressure drop lowers the boiling point of water, pressure increase raises boiling point.

Now if you mean converting bulk water mass to steam in a short period of time then yes. You need a lot of energy to do so.

None of this contradicts the fact that water vapor is steam and it is in the air we breathe.

The humidity content also limits the heat absorbed by the air.

Take FL humid AF, but also it's really hard for the temperature to get into the 100s during the summer because the humidity/steam/water vapor content of the atmosphere makes it difficult to heat to 100f. Whereas a desert sees higher temperatures because there's less humidity/water vapor/steam in the air.