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Recently I entered a room at my workplace with sweaty clothes.The thermostat read 5°C and the humidity was 100%.The outside temperature was close to 20°C.Also the AC was switched off.In about ten minutes my clothes were all dry.

I just can't understand how this is possible. Most importantly why would my sweat evaporate at all as it is at a higher temperature than the room.

I tried to figure this out by taking a wet glass plate to that same room and again it was dry in about seven or eight minutes(keeping all the conditions as same as metioned before) So I am pretty sure that it wasn't only because my body absorbs some of the sweat back in that my clothes got dry.Anyway the articles I read online about the body absorbing back its sweat did only mention that it happens in relatively small amounts.

Where did my sweat go and how is it possible?

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    $\begingroup$ Relative humidity is not a good indicator of how humid it is in my opinion; a room at 5C at 100% and at 20C at 100% does not contain the same amount of moisture. You should really determine the absolute humidity or dew point. If the dew point is near the temperature of the room your sweat will not evaporate. $\endgroup$
    – nluigi
    Jul 26, 2019 at 15:32
  • $\begingroup$ Presumably the relative humidity was not, in fact, 100.0%. RH is also a strong function of temperature, so if the temperature where you were in the room was higher than where the termostat was, the RH would not be 100.0% $\endgroup$
    – Jon Custer
    Jul 26, 2019 at 15:32

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The fact that you mention the outside temperature at all (it shouldn't matter if the room was sealed), makes me wonder if there was a door or window (partly?) open?

My guess would be that both temperature and relative humidity were inhomogeneous. It was cold where the termostat sits (and the air might have been close to saturation with water there) and somewhat warmer were you sat/stood. Thus, locally, the air wasn't saturated with water vapour and allowed evaporation.

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  • $\begingroup$ Well maybe.But is there any other way where fluid could evaporate while the surrounding is saturated with it?At least by temporarily disturbing the equillibrium of the vapour. $\endgroup$
    – AfiJaabb
    Jul 27, 2019 at 7:43

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