What is the water cycle?

Answer 1

The water cycle is a basic environmental process that, in essence, cycles water from ground water and open bodies of water into the air, and then fall back to the ground.

Now for the more detailed explanation.

Lets start with the ocean. The sun warm the surface of the ocean, and causes evaporation (water molecules turning into a gaseous state and rising into the air). As the water molecules rise into the air they meet colder air, at which point they condense, which means they make clouds. Once the clouds become saturated with water, they begin to let off water in the form of precipitation (rain, sleet, snow, stuff like that). If the precipitation falls over land, multiple things can happen. The water could enter a stream or a river, at which point it will eventually enter the ocean and evaporate again. Another thing that could happen is that the precipitation enters the ground water, and it will eventually end up in the ocean. Another possibility is that it will be drunk by an animal or absorbed by a plant. Water is used in both processes of cellular respiration (animals) and photosynthesis (plants), and water is also a waste product of these processes. The water will then exit the organism, the fashion of which depends on whether it's a plant or an animal. If it is a plant, it will exit through a process called transpiration, which is basically the plant sweating. In animals the water escapes either by perspiration (sweat), the moisture in your breath, or in waste. Any way it happens, it will generally go straight back into the air, instead of going to a pond or ocean (exception with the waste, hopefully it gets treated and returned to the environment instead of evaporated in most areas).

All the water cycle really is is the movement of water from water sources into the air and back again. Hope you find this useful.

Answer 2

The water cycle is how water is recycled on earth.

There's evaporation, where the sun's heat energy causes the water to turn into water vapor.
Once in the atmosphere, if the temperature becomes cool enough, the water will condense to form clouds.
Then, once the water droplets become too heavy, they fall to earth as rain, snow, or some other form of precipitation.
Once there, it begins all over again.
Which means, you realize, that there has never been more/less water on this planet. Unfortunately, less than 1% is fresh... And a lot of that is polluted...

I hope I helped. ^_^

Answer 3

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Answer 4

Did you know that you could be drinking the same water that a dinosaur drank, millions of years ago. My teacher told me that! :)
Here's a link......