You are viewing the easy textfigure link on this page

Water Cycle

Most water on Earth is in the oceans or in lakes and rivers. A little however, is contained by air in the atmosphere. Usually we don't see this water except when it rains, since it is in the form of moisture or vapour.

Water enters the atmosphere by evaporating from the surface of the oceans, lakes and other liquid water bodies. At higher levels in the atmosphere the air is colder, and moisture begins to condense out as fine droplets which we can see as cloud. [When conditions are right on the ground, the same process forms what we call fog.] Eventually, water in clouds forms rain, hail, sleet or snow which falls back to the Earth. This movement or cycling of water from the Earth to the atmosphere and back again is called the water cycle. The water cycle is responsible for a lot of the world's weather.

Water cycle
 

Weather

Print Topic

  Technical Page

Websites
• Water Cycle
• Weather Terms
• Weather Gone Wild

Other topics
• Introduction to Weather
• Clouds
• Dew
• Energy
• Fog
• Forecasting
• Hurricanes
• Measuring Weather
• Thunderstorms
• Tornadoes
• Water Cycle

Home