多年来，人们一直使用将水蒸发到流动气流中来降低气流的干球温度。这个非常简单的过程的缺点是会增加水分。近70年前，在对湿度理论有了大量了解之前（Carrier的经典论文直到1911年才出版），冷却塔已经被广泛使用。在炎热和干旱的夏季，世界上大部分沙漠地区的气候都是炎热和干旱的，许多有创意的工程师都在寻找使用冷却水来降低室内空气温度的方法。由于实践先于理论，正如在工程的许多方面一样，本文将首先介绍一些使用蒸发空气冷却的早期尝试。在简要介绍湿度理论之后，将讨论克服了困扰该领域先驱的许多困难的现代发展。 引文:研讨会论文，佐治亚州亚特兰大，1984年

Evaporation of water into flowing airstreams has been used for many years to lower the dry-bulb temperature of the airstream. The drawback to this very simple process is the addition of moisture which it entails. Nearly 70 years ago, before there was much knowledge of psychrometric theory (Carrier’s classic paper was not published until 1911), the cooling tower was already in wide use. A large number of ingenious engineers sought ways to use the cooled water to reduce indoor air temperatures during the torrid and arid summers which characterize the climate of most of the desert regions of the world. Since practice preceded theory, as it has in so many aspects of engineering, this paper will first describe some of the early attempts to use evaporative air cooling. A brief excursion into psychrometric theory will be followed by a discussion of modern developments which have overcome many of the difficulties which beset the pioneers in this field.