Earth's Water
SECTION 3
The Water Cycle
- The Hydrosphere is almost all salt water, the remainder is freshwater in lakes and rivers.
- Water is constantly moving
- This is the Water Cycle
- Evaporation and precipitation are the main functions of the water cycle
- Evaporation-changing of liquid in to gas/vapor
- Condensation-water vapor into liquid
- Precipitation-clouds contain more water than it can hold, results in rain, snow, sleet
Bodies of Salt Water
- 70% of earths surface is water.
- 4 oceans- Pacific,Atlantic,Indian, and the Arctic
-Pacific is the largest of the 4
- Gulfs,seas, and bays are bodies of salt water; they are usually enclosed by land.
- Desalination: turning ocean water into freshwater by removing the salt.
Bodies of Freshwater
- Only 3% of water on the earth is consumable for humans.
- More than 2% of it is frozen in glaciers
-Aquifer: "an underground rock layer often filled with water.."-Groundwater is freshwater that is beneath the earths surface.
-Streams can combine and form a river