OPTION 2 SEMINAR BY DIEDRE JOHNSON The Water Cycle: The Water Cycle (also known as the hydrologic cycle) is the journey water takes as it circulates from the land to the sky and back again. The Sun's heat provides energy to evaporate water from the Earth's surface (oceans, lakes, etc.). Plants also lose water to the air (this is called transpiration). The water vapor eventually condenses, forming tiny droplets in clouds. When the clouds meet cool air over land, precipitation (rain, sleet, or snow) is triggered, and water returns to the land (or sea).
Transpiration removes water from plants and soil. Air currents take water vapour into the atmosphere where cooler temperature causes it to condense into clouds. Air currents move water around the globe; cloud particles collide and fall out of the sky as snow, hail or sleet. Most water falls back into ocean or on land as rain where the water flows over ground as runoff. Some of runoff enters rivers flowing water towards ocean where water cycle had started.
In warmer periods there is less ice and the water is warmer, so expands and sea levels rise. In colder periods the ocean water is colder so contracts and sea levels fall. There are also other land changes that occur, such as knick points, river terraces and incised meanders. Knick points are the part of the river/channel where there is a sharp change in channel slope, such as a waterfall. Knick points reflect different conditions and processes on the river often caused by previous erosion.
Due to this convergence (where winds move to a center point), air is forced to rise over that area. If enough moisture is available, the rising air cools and condenses (as cold air cannot hold water vapor below a certain temperature) into tiny water droplets which constitute the cloud. So, low pressure areas are usually the birth-place of clouds. Sometimes, particularly in the winter, fog forms over a high pressure area due to radiation cooling(due to clear sky conditions over a high pressure area).This fog sometimes lift and forms thick low cloud called "anticyclone gloom". (5 points) |Score | | | 4.
What about at an increased temperature? Answer = The weather may be calm with decreased temperatures verses a warmer temperature. The sun heats the water to evaporate and to produce water vapors that transform into clouds. According to our lab manual, clouds form at many different altitudes in the troposphere when water vapor in warm air rises and cools. Experiment 1: Water Movement POST LAB QUESTIONS 1.
Since air is less dense than water wind can only remove fine sediment such as silt, sand, and clay, but unlike running water, wind is not confined to channels. It can have a widespread effect over vast areas, and the faster the wind blows, the more sediment it can move. Wind action in dry climates can result in thick, choking dust storms. Air pressure differences cause wind as air warms and cools and changes density. The extreme temperature fluctuations that can occur in dry climates causes winds to become stronger.
The glaciers weight forces itself downhill. As it moves downhill it carves the landscape because of the pressure caused by the great mass of the glacier. The glacier will continue down hill forming a U-shaped glacial valley as it carves its own path. There are other methods that a glacier uses to erode and shape the valley such as, plucking, abrasion, and freeze-thaw weathering. Plucking is when a glacier freezes onto a rock and pulls it away from the land as it moves.
In order for a blizzard to form, warm air must rise over cold air. There are two ways that this may happen. The winds pull cool air toward the equator from the poles and bring warm air toward the poles from the equator. When warm and cold air collide, a front forms, and precipitation occurs. Warm air can also rise to form clouds, and blizzard snows, as it drifts up a mountainside.
When water freezes, latent heat is also released, warming the air in contact with the forming ice. Latent heat plays an important role in the redistribution of heat on the surface of Earth, especially through evaporation in the tropics and subtropics and the subsequent precipitation in higher latitudes. Secondly the warm waters sets up a low-pressure region around Iceland, reaching over the Norwegian Sea. The Icelandic Low acts as an enormous whirlpool sucking in warm air from the subtropical regions on top of the Gulf Stream and sending much of the heat to Norwegian shores. The transport of heat by the warm ocean
Hurricanes need the ocean’s water temperature to be about 80 degrees to a depth of about 150 feet. Another factor of the forming of hurricanes is the rapid cooling of the warm water vapors that were evaporated, which causes condensation (the second step of the water cycle). The third step of the water cycle is precipitation and that happens when too many water vapors are condensed and rain starts to fall. Humidity is also needed in the