Water Cycle

WATER CYCLE

Water Cycle, also known as hydrologic cycle, is a process that is constantly recycling the Earth's supply of water. This is important because humans, animals, and plants all need water to survive. It is controlled by the sun, which produces energy in the form of heat. This heat energy causes the water in the world's oceans, lakes, etc. to warm and evaporate. As the water is heated, it changes its phase from liquid to gas. This gas is called water vapor and this process is called evaporation. When plants give off water vapor, it’s called transpiration. When water evaporates, it rises into the cooler air, collects, and forms clouds. There, the water vapor molecules cool down and change back into liquid water. This is called condensation. As more and more water vapor cools into the clouds, the water droplets that form the clouds become larger and larger. When the swirling winds in the atmosphere can no longer hold them up, the droplets fall from the sky and precipitation is the term for the