The water cycle

The Water Cycle

By Zara

I am learning to inform my audience through an explanation 

Do you know why earth is called the blue planet or why, when you look on a map there is this big blue gap between South America and Africa? Well it is because three quarters of the earth’s surface is water. You may be thinking that the water would run out, but no, it is actually recycled. The water is recycled through something called the water cycle. This is called the hydrologic cycle to be scientific. 97% of earth’s water is salt water leaving the other 3% to be fresh water though only 1% of that water is drinkable because the other 2% is ice. There are three main stages in the water cycle, evaporation, condensation and precipitation. Without one of these important stages the water cycle would not exist.

The first stage of the water cycle is evaporation. Evaporation is the process of the sun heating up the water. When the heat source reaches the water, the water gets very hot. When the water gets hot it turns into a gas called water vapor then the water vapor rises to the sky. You can see evaporation at home when you put your clothes on the clothesline. Nobody ever really thinks about how the water gets off the clothes. Well the water doesn’t fall on the ground so it must go up. That is the water evaporating, that is when it goes up to start condensation.

Condensation is the process of the water vapor present in the atmosphere turning back into liquid, water. This happens when the water gets so high that it is too cold so it turns back into liquid water which forms clouds. You can see this at home with a can of coke, condensation is what causes the water droplets at the top of the can. There is so much water vapor in the atmosphere that when it reaches the coldness of the can it turns back into water but if the can is warm there is no water droplets. When the water is a cloud it gets ready to move onto the next stage, precipitation.

Precipitation happens when the clouds get heavy, too heavy in fact to hold all the water it is carrying so the water all falls out. It can fall out in different forms depending on the weather, if it is warm or just cold it is usually rain. When it is 0℃ or below it usually snows, hails or sleets. You can see this at home by heating some water in a jar until it is ⅓ full then put some cling wrap on top of the jar. After that put ice cubes on top of the cling wrap, watch closely to see what happens. Streaks of water will start to run down the side of the jar making it rain. When it rains some of the water goes underneath the surface of the earth, that water is called groundwater, and the water that falls straight into rivers, lakes or oceans is called streamflow.

The water cycle is such an incredible cycle that we could not live without. Every step is important from evaporation turning the water into gas, condensation turning it into clouds and precipitation, the water falling back down to the ground. It is important that we do not waste water so this amazing cycle can exist.