Water cycle The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle, is the process by which water moves from place to place above, on, and below the Earth's surface. This is the process by which water moves around the Earth to different places. The total amount of water on the Earth is relatively unchanging, and it has remained about the same since our planet's formation. As the planet cooled, water vapor present at its formation condensed to fill the oceans and other places, like inland lakes and rivers. The distribution of water on Earth The Earth's surface is 75% water and 25% land. Of the water, 97% is salt water, a surprisingly high percentage, leaving only 3% as fresh water. Most of that - two-thirds of the fresh water on Earth - is frozen in snow and ice in glaciers, ice caps, and the like. That leaves only about 1% of all the Earth's water as liquid and fresh, making it a very scarce natural resource. If that wasn't enough, most of the liquid fresh water is stored underground in aquifers. Groundwater is just what the word sounds like: water stored under the surface of the Earth. But, like rocks or other types of matter, water on the Earth is not static. It is constantly moving around the hydrosphere, the layer of the Earth where water is present. It moves around by changing in three different processes that make up the water cycle. …show more content…
That's where most of the liquid water on the surface is, right? Evaporation is the process by which water is converted from its liquid state to the gaseous state, also known as water vapor. In other words, water leaves the Earth's surface and enters the atmosphere as a
The hydrological cycle is where water is stored in places like oceans and ponds, and then evaporated. Next, the water is condensed. Finally, water is rained down as precipitation and accumulates in ponds and oceans. This cycle continues repeatedly. Human activities that are detrimental to this cycle
Evaporation (transpiration) Heat from the sun warms water from rivers, lakes, and the ocean to turn into vapor or steam; leaving the reservoir and moving upwards into the atmosphere. (Plants transpire, or lose water from their leaves).
Growing up, we all went through the water cycle lesson and we will never forget it. The reason being, we encounter the water cycle throughout our entire life and it will always effect our systems and more importantly our water system. As illustrated in the picture, our water cycle includes the processes of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, which then goes to many places. During evaporation, the sun is used as a main power to make this happen. The sun’s rays beat down onto the ground creating all of the moisture and water to fizzle into a gas state into the atmosphere and get stored away into the clouds. When it is stored into the clouds it is condensing. Condensation means that the gas is again forming itself back into its liquid state to get ready to return to Earth. The condensation then forms into precipitation. Precipitation comes in many different forms. You can see it as rain, snow, sleet, or hail making its way back to us. What happens to it then depends on the area. The water might end up as runoff, or become
The water cycle represents how water is exchanged and cycled through Earth’s land, oceans, and atmosphere (2010 pg.1). Evaporation, condensation, and precipitation are all three main factors within the water cycle. Evaporation occurs when a liquids surface changes to gas. For example, when water from rivers, oceans or lakes evaporate, it becomes water vapor. Condensation occurs when gas changes to a liquid. For example, clouds form when water vapor condescends. Precipitation is described as any liquid or solid water that falls to earth from above. A great and simple example would be rain, snow or hail (2010 pg.1). Within the water cycle, there are three states of water: solid, liquid and gas. Most of Earth’s freshwater is
The water cycle is an ongoing process where water is constantly being changed from a liquid to a gas and back to a liquid. The water that is on the ground is evaporate into a vapor into the sky. Once the vapor is in the sky it condense and forms clouds. The cloud collect as much water as they can until, the water becomes too heavy and release the water back unto the ground. Then the whole water cycle the starts all over again.
What is the water cycle? The water cycle is the continuous movement of water being recycled through the air, surface, and water. All water on earth goes through the water cycle including saltwater and freshwater. 96.5 percent is saltwater and 3.5 is freshwater. How does the water cycle work? Most of the water on earth is in the ocean so most water begins there, the rest is in lakes, rivers, glaciers, and more. As the sun beats down on a river, ocean, or lake, the water begins to turn into a gas. This gas is called water vapor. As it turns to water vapor it rises up into the atmosphere. This is the process of evaporation. But there is another way that water rises into the atmosphere, called transportation. This is basically plants sweating!
Michigan is well-known for the amazing Great Lakes that create its breath taking shoreline. The lakes contain about 23,000 km3 of water, covering a total area of 244,000 km2. The Great Lakes are a series of interconnecting fresh water lakes that hold 18 percent of the world’s fresh water supply, and 90 percent of the United States fresh water supply. The Great Lakes are made up by Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. Superior, right off the coast of Marquette, is the biggest, deepest and coldest out of them all. The Great lakes didn’t just appear in the land on their own. They were formed by weathering, erosion, and deposition over ten-thousands of years ago, one-thousand years ago and hundreds of years
The water cycle in the deciduous forest occurs mostly in the stage of transpiration. Although there are bodies of water in the deciduous forest, water also evaporates from the leaves of the plants and into the atmosphere. The water vapor will condense into tiny droplets which form clouds; the clouds will then return the water back to the ground in the form of precipitation. The water falls to the floor of the deciduous forest and travels into the roots of the plants. The cycle will then start over again.
We have the world filled with people, towns, cities, and tons more stuff, but what really covers two-thirds of the Earth surface is water. When the world adds more populations in our world than our water sources increases. In our world, we have so many rivers and oceans, but the one river that is fresh and produces water the most is the Nile River.
The earth is like a living organism; it thrives full of life with a fragile balance. This balance has been thrown off by many different things. Water seems to be one of the biggest problems with this offset balance. Water is a magic liquid keeping all of life thriving. Humans drink and use water, plants use water, water is used in everyday life, and it’s slowly being taken away. In the future, there will be no water left to sustain life on earth.
From the time the earth was formed, water have been endlessly circulating. This circulation is known as the hydrologic cycle. Groundwater is part of this continuous
This is done in two ways. EVAPORATION happens when water either from the ground or a body of water is turned into vapor by the sun. TRANSPIRATION happens when water from plants are released from small pores. Only after this is the water turned into vapor. Water vapor goes into the atmosphere and is turned back into liquid water through CONDENSATION.
HYDROLOGIC CYCLE The hydrologic cycle is a constant movement of water above, on, and below the earth's surface. It is a cycle that replenishes ground water supplies. It begins as water vaporizes into the atmosphere from vegetation, soil, lakes, rivers, snowfields and oceans-a process called evapotranspiration. As the water vapor rises it condenses to form clouds that return water to the land through precipitation: rain, snow, or hail. Precipitation falls on the earth and either percolates into the soil or flows across the ground. Usually it does both. When precipitation percolates into the soil it is called infiltration when it flows across the ground it is called surface run off. The amount of precipitation that infiltrates, versus the
Through its infiltration into the soil, water recharges aquifers .Water does not always follow definite paths of over land flows and infiltration but also evaporate through the atmosphere or translocated through plant roots, systems and leaves the plants through it leaves in a process called transpiration. Water does not move in its pure form but carries with it a number of compounds in solution or suspended in the water and then discharges these into surface water bodies and aquifers where they may cause pollution.
The hydrosphere is all of the waters on the earth’s surface, it includes lakes, seas and more. The ocean itself, covers over 70% of the surface of earth. Around 2% is accounted for in the shape of glaciers and ice caps. There is a lot of water on earth. It makes me wonder why there are places going through dry spells if there is that much water that is on our planet. The way water moves in the water cycle is “The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats water in the oceans. Some of it evaporates as vapor into the air; a relatively smaller amount of moisture is added as ice and snow sublimate directly from the solid state into vapor. Rising air currents take the vapor up into the atmosphere, along with water from evapotranspiration, which is water transpired from plants and evaporated from the soil. The vapor rises