Time-series dataset of air temperature, fruit surface temperature and humidity in commercial apple cold storage.

Temperature and humidity strongly influence fruit quality during cold storage. Temperature should be maintained slightly above the freezing point for most fruits, and humidity should be maintained in equilibrium with fruit's moisture to reduce mass loss, while avoiding condensation on its surface. Besides absolute temperature, the difference between fruit surface and air temperature plays a key role for phase change phenomena such as condensation, evaporation, mass loss, and heat transfer by cooling air. Whereas spatial air temperature distribution in the postharvest cold chain has been covered by several studies, data on humidity distribution are scarce. This time series dataset provides multi-point measurements of fruit surface and air temperature, and air humidity recorded with IoT sensors inside a commercial apple cold room. The changes in these parameters across different locations and storage periods can be used to identify condensation spots and to create a better understanding of cooling processes under high humidity conditions and their optimization.