EN हिं

NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 2 e) Humidity — LET'S EXPLORE

Book page 37 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Where do you think humidity is likely to be more, Kochi or Jaipur? You might guess that Kochi has higher humidity than Jaipur because it is located near the sea. But how will we know for sure? If we had to compare the humidity level between Kochi and Mangaluru, how would we do it? Discuss with your classmates.
Answer

Kochi is almost certainly the more humid of the two — and the guess is a good one, because Kochi sits on the Arabian Sea coast of Kerala with sea water evaporating constantly beside it, while Jaipur lies inland in Rajasthan, close to the dry Thar region, with no large water body nearby.

But a guess is not proof. To know for sure we must measure, exactly as we do with temperature and rainfall:

  1. Use a hygrometer, the instrument that measures relative humidity, at each place.
  2. Take the reading at the same time of day and on the same date at both places — humidity changes through the day, so a morning reading in one city cannot be compared with an afternoon reading in the other.
  3. Take readings over several days and compare the averages, not one lucky day.
  4. Or simply compare the daily relative humidity figures the IMD publishes for both stations.

And Kochi versus Mangaluru? Here the guess fails, because both are coastal cities on the same Arabian Sea, both in the humid west-coast belt. Location alone cannot separate them. The only honest way is to compare their measured relative humidity — the same date, the same hour, ideally averaged over a month — because the difference between them will be small, and small differences can only be settled by numbers.

Why the sea makes the difference: Humidity is the amount of water vapour in the air. Beside a warm sea, sunshine evaporates sea water continuously and the sea breeze carries that vapour inland, so coastal air stays close to saturation. Inland, far from any large water body, there is little to evaporate, so the air stays dry — typically 20–40% relative humidity in dry weather against 60–80% in humid weather.
Tip: This is the whole lesson of the chapter in one question — reasoning gives you a sensible expectation, but only measurement can confirm it or overturn it.
Was this helpful? Report an error