Satiety deficit
The saturation deficit , also called hunger for steam or limited steam pressure difference , expresses how strongly a gas is saturated with respect to a component . It is calculated from the difference between the saturation vapor pressure and the vapor pressure of the gas.
If this difference approaches zero, the gas approaches saturation. The greater the difference, the further away the gas is from saturation. The saturation deficit, like saturation itself, is strongly temperature-dependent, but hardly dependent on pressure. It is also possible to represent this difference using the concentration or mass, which is why you can also formulate other formulas for the saturation deficit. However, these are generally not very common.
Saturation deficit of water vapor in meteorology
The most common field of application for the saturation deficit is the water vapor content of the air in meteorology , whereby this represents a relative measure for the air humidity . The vapor pressure corresponds to the amount of gas that the air can still absorb at a certain temperature until it is saturated.
There are also numerous measuring instruments ( hygrometers ) that are specially designed to record a form of saturation deficit. The saturation deficit plays an important role in the theoretical evaporation calculation .