Dewcells,

Translation Bureau The Translation Bureau is an institution of the federal government of Canada operated by Public Services and Procurement Canada that provides translation services for all agencies, boards, commissions, and departments of the government. As of Decemb ...

dewcels or dew cell''Some limitations and errors inherent in the use of the dew cell for measurement of atmospheric dew points''
/ref> are instruments used for determining the

dew point The dew point is the temperature to which air must be cooled to become saturated with water vapor, assuming constant air pressure and water content. When cooled below the dew point, moisture capacity is reduced and airborne water vapor will cond ...

. They consist of a small

heating element A heating element converts electrical energy into heat through the process of Joule heating. Electric current through the element encounters resistance, resulting in heating of the element. Unlike the Peltier effect, this process is indepen ...

surrounded by a solution of

lithium chloride Lithium chloride is a chemical compound with the formula Li Cl. The salt is a typical ionic compound (with certain covalent characteristics), although the small size of the Li+ ion gives rise to properties not seen for other alkali metal chlorid ...

. As the LiCl absorbs

moisture Moisture is the presence of a liquid, especially water, often in trace amounts. Small amounts of water may be found, for example, in the air (humidity), in foods, and in some commercial products. Moisture also refers to the amount of water vapo ...

from the air, conduction across the heating element increases, current in it increases, and heat increases, evaporating moisture from the salt solution. At a certain temperature the amount of moisture absorbed by the salt solution equals the amount evaporated (equilibrium). Inside the dewcell core a

thermistor A thermistor is a type of resistor whose resistance is strongly dependent on temperature, more so than in standard resistors. The word thermistor is a portmanteau of ''thermal'' and ''resistor''. Thermistors are divided based on their conduction ...

composite (or other temperature measurement device) changes

electrical resistance The electrical resistance of an object is a measure of its opposition to the flow of electric current. Its reciprocal quantity is , measuring the ease with which an electric current passes. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual paralle ...

with the temperature created by the heating. A

front end processor A front end processor (FEP), or a communications processor, is a small-sized computer which interfaces to the host computer a number of networks, such as SNA, or a number of peripheral devices, such as terminals, disk units, printers and ta ...

provides a reference

voltage Voltage, also known as electric pressure, electric tension, or (electric) potential difference, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a static electric field, it corresponds to the work needed per unit of charge to ...

, measures the output of the network, and calculates the dew point.

References

External links

''Foxboro Dewcel documentation''
Atmospheric thermodynamics Meteorological instrumentation and equipment {{climate-stub