Water Cycle free essay sample

According to website, â€Å"about 70 percent of the Earths surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earths water† http://ga.water.usgs.gov. â€Å"It circulates in the atmosphere keeping a delicate balance of temperature and sustaining life on the planet. The process of the cycle of water from the oceans to the mountains and back to the oceans again is caused by solar radiation. The process is made up of a few processes that work together; evaporation, condensation, precipitation, evaporate-transpiration and infiltration† http://thehankwilliamsmuseum.com. The Water Cycle, also known as hydrologic cycle, is a process that is constantly recycling the Earths supply of water. This is very important because humans, animals, and plants all need water to stay alive. Like my picture above it shows how the water cycle moves from one place to the next. The water is controlled by the sun, which produces energy in the form of heat. We will write a custom essay sample on Water Cycle or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This heat energy causes the water in the worlds oceans and lakes to warm and evaporate. As the water is heated, it changes its phase from liquid to gas. This gas is called water vapor and this process is called evaporation. When plants give off water vapor, it’s called transpiration. When water evaporates, it rises into the cooler air, collects, and forms clouds. There, the water vapor molecules cool down and change back into liquid water. This is called condensation. As more and more water vapor cools into the clouds, the water droplets that form the clouds become larger and larger. When the swirling winds in the atmosphere can no longer hold them up, the droplets fall from the sky and precipitation is the term for the falling, condensed water molecules, which come down as rain, snow, sleet, or hail depending on conditions in the atmosphere. When water falls to the Earth, the water seeps into the soil because of the force of gravity. This seeping is called infiltration. Then the water flows over the land and into bodies of water, such as rivers and lakes.