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Have you ever heard of the water cycle?
Maybe you've heard the word evaporation or precipitation.
These are stages in the water cycle!
You will learn all four stages of this process, and you may even discover that you've seen it in action many times! You will also learn about how important it is to conserve freshwater on the earth.
The water you drink may possibly be millions of years old! This is because the earth has a certain amount of water that moves around the earth in different states and phases.
The first stage is evaporation. This occurs when the sun heats the water in oceans, lakes, and other bodies of water to point that it turns into gas, and that gas evaporates into the air.
Transpiration is the second step. is similar to evaporation and occurs when plant leaves release water as water vapor into the air.
Condensation is the third step. This is when the vapor in the air gets cold and changes back into a liquid.
This is actually how a cloud forms! This is also the reason you see foggy mirrors after a hot shower. When clouds have too much water and get too heavy, it rains.
When it rains, this is called precipitation, the final stage of the cycle.
Evaporation is the process by which water changes from a liquid to a gas. The sun's heat causes water to evaporate from the Earth's surface, such as from lakes, rivers, oceans, and even plants.
Condensation is the process by which water vapor changes back to a liquid. When water vapor cools, it condenses into tiny droplets of water. These droplets form clouds.
Precipitation is the process by which water falls from the clouds back to the Earth's surface. Precipitation can be in the form of rain, snow, sleet, or hail.
Infiltration is the process by which water soaks into the ground. The water that infiltrates the ground is called groundwater.
Percolation is the process by which groundwater moves through the soil and rocks. Percolating water can eventually reach the water table, which is the upper level of groundwater.
Runoff is the process by which water flows over the ground surface. Runoff can collect in rivers, lakes, and oceans.
A diagram showing the major components of the water cycle
Storage is the process by which water is held in lakes, rivers, oceans, glaciers, and underground aquifers.
Precipitation happens when water falls down to Earth,s surface. This water might be in a liquid or solid state.
Rain and snow are probably the most well known types of precipitation, but there are others.
The temperature of the cloud and the air between the cloud and the ground create different kinds of precipitation.
The important part of the water cycle?
water cycle, also called hydrologic cycle, cycle that involves the continuous circulation of water in the Earth-atmosphere system. Of the many processes involved in the water cycle, the most important are evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and runoff.
Why do we save water?
Using water-saving techniques can save you money and diverts less water from our rivers, bays, and estuaries, which helps keep the environment healthy. It can also reduce water and wastewater treatment costs and the amount of energy used to treat, pump, and heat water.
Why is the water cycle so important?
The water cycle is an extremely important process because it enables the availability of water for all living organisms and regulates weather patterns on our planet. If water didn't naturally recycle itself, we would run out of clean water, which is essential to life.
What is the name of the water cycle?
The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle, describes where water is stored on Earth and how it moves.
How long does the water cycle take?
A drop of water may spend over 3,000 years in the ocean before evaporating into the air, while a drop of water spends an average of just nine days in the atmosphere before falling back to Earth. Water spends thousands to hundreds of thousands of years in the large ice sheets that cover Antarctica and Greenland.
How do plants take in water?
How water gets into plants. Plants absorb water from the soil by a process called osmosis – the natural movement of water molecules from an area of high concentration, across a semi-permeable, sieve-like membrane, to an area of low concentration.
What is the largest water cycle?
The Ocean's Role. On a global scale, nearly all of the water in the water cycle is in the oceans. The oceans hold approximately 72% of the Earth's water and, because of their size, it may take thousands of years for a water molecule to move from the ocean to the atmosphere.
What causes rain?
Clouds are made up of tiny water droplets. When these droplets grow, they eventually become too heavy to stay suspended in the sky and fall to the ground as rain. Some droplets fall through the cloud and coalesce into raindrops on their way down.
How is water stored on Earth?
The Earth's water content is about 1.39 billion cubic kilometers (331 million cubic miles), with the bulk of it, about 96.5%, being in the global oceans. As for the rest, approximately 1.7% is stored in the polar icecaps, glaciers, and permanent snow, and another 1.7% is stored in groundwater, lakes, rivers, streams, and soil. Only a thousandth of 1% of the water on Earth exists as water vapor in the atmosphere.
What drives the water cycle?
Energy from the sun and the force of gravity drive the continual movement of water between pools. The sun's energy causes liquid water to evaporate into water vapor. Evapotranspiration is the main way water moves into the atmosphere from the land surface and oceans. Gravity causes water to flow downward on land.
Which are the source of water?
Source water refers to bodies of water (such as rivers, streams, lakes, reservoirs, springs, and ground water) that provide water to public drinking-water supplies and private wells. Water sources can include: Surface water (for example, a lake, river, or reservoir) Ground water (for example, an aquifer)
What are the three forms of water?
The three forms that water can exist in are - solid, liquid and gaseous. Solid form is ice, liquid form is water, whereas gaseous form is water vapour or moisture present in the atmosphere.