Water Cycle Mrs. Cancasci

Parts of the water cycle Evaporation Condensation Precipitation Transpiration

Evaporation The change of a substance from a liquid to a gas. The sun’s heat causes water on earth’s surface to change from liquid water to water vapor. This water vapor moves into the upper atmosphere.

Condensation The change of state from gas to a liquid. When the water vapor in the atmosphere cools it returns to a liquid state. Before condensation can occur the air must be saturated-100% Relative humidity! Clouds form when the air becomes saturated with water and water droplets form in the air.

Precipitation Any form of water that falls to the earth’s surface from clouds Rain, sleet, snow, and hail are forms of precipitation. Most precipitation falls on the ocean Precipitation that falls on land flows into streams, rivers, and lakes, this is called runoff.

Precipitation Water that seeps into the ground and is stores in spaces between or within rocks is called groundwater. Groundwater will eventually flow back into the soil, rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans.

Precipitation Rain-liquid water falling to Earth’s surface Sleet-liquid water that freezes before it reaches Earth’s surface Snow-liquid water that freezes before it leaves the cloud to fall to Earth’s surface Hail- Liquid water that freezes, blown up, collects more water and refreezes several times before falling to Earth’s surface.

Transpiration This is where water is released into the atmosphere by plants. Plants take in water through their roots and release it through stomates-pores on the underside of their leaves.

Cool facts! There is about 1.4 billion cubic kilometers of water on Earth (1 cubic kilometer=264 gallons.) 3,000 cubic kilometers of that water is in the atmoshere. If it was all in liquid form on Earth’s surface the land would be covered in 2.5cm of water.