Water Cycle and it’s affects on weather

Water Cycle and it’s affects on weather Melissa Larkin, Lindsey Sacksteder, Jen Schwertman

The water cycle

What is the water cycle? • The water cycle consist’s of four different steps: • Evaporation (Transpiration) • Condensation • Precipitation • Collection (Infiltration)

Evaporation • Evaporation is when the sun heats up water in rivers, lakes, or the ocean and turns it into vapor or steam. The water vapor or steam leaves the river, lake or ocean and goes into the air. • Transpiration is the process by which plants lose water out of their leaves. Transpiration gives evaporation a bit of a hand in getting the water vapor back up into the air.

Evaporation in Pictures

Condensation • Water vapor in the air gets cold and changes back into liquid, forming clouds. This is called condensation.

Condensation in Pictures

Precipitation • Precipitation occurs when so much water has condensed that the air cannot hold it anymore. The clouds get heavy and water falls back to the earth in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow.

Precipitation in Pictures

Collection • When water falls back to earth as precipitation, it may fall back in the oceans, lakes or rivers or it may end up on land. When it ends up on land, it will either soak into the earth and become part of the “ground water” that plants and animals use to drink or it may run over the soil and collect in the oceans, lakes or rivers where the cycle starts all over again.

Collection in Pictures

What are Tornadoes? • Before thunderstorms develop, a change in wind direction and an increase in wind speed with increasing height creates an invisible, horizontal spinning effect in the lower atmosphere. • Rising air within the thunderstorm updraft tilts the rotating air from horizontal to vertical.

An area of rotation, 2-6 miles wide, now extends through much of the storm. Most strong and violent tornadoes form within this area of strong rotation. • A lower cloud base in the center of the photograph identifies an area of rotation known as a rotating wall cloud. This area is often nearly rain-free. Note rain in the background.

Moments later a strong tornado develops in this area. Softball-size hail and damaging "straight-line" winds also occurred with this storm.

Safety Precautions • Go into the cellar or basement. If you don’t have access to either, lay down in a bathtub and put a mattress over yourself.

The Water Cycle and Hurricanes • A hurricane is a strong storm that forms in one of the worlds many oceans. The ideal situation for a hurricane to form is when the ocean water is warm. As it is forming in the sea, the warmer the water is the stronger the hurricane becomes. This means the places most likely to have hurricanes are the southern Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Eastern Pacific Ocean. However, Hurricanes can form in any ocean.

Hurricanes in Pictures

Safety Precautions • Board up all windows and doors. Lock up cabinets so nothing falls out. • If serious and recommended by officials, evacuate.

The water cycle and floods • As soon as water makes contact with the earth, it is forced by the pull of gravity to seek the lowest level possible. If the water is not absorbed into the ground, it will continue to seek out a lower level. These tributaries eventually meet and form larger troughs called streams or creeks. In turn these streams may form large rivers which can carry significant amounts of water. These rivers must have outlets, which may be oceans or lakes. Eventually water levels are controlled by evaporation or absorption into the ground. Every step along the way, from raindrop to stream to ocean, has developed a natural capacity and this balance is usually maintained. • More precipitation than normal cause a flood because there is more water the river, but the river cant hold all of it, so it floods over

Floods in Pictures

Safety Precautions • In most small scale floods, stay on upper levels of house or city • If serious enough, Evacuate

The water cycle and drought • A drought is a period of abnormally dry weather that lasts long enough to produce a serious imbalance in the water cycle. A drought is defined and measured in relation to normal climate conditions. The specific factors that define droughts are rainfall amounts, vegetation conditions, agricultural productivity, soil moisture, reservoir levels, changes in river and stream flows and economic impacts. Droughts can last for many years and have devastating effects on agriculture, water supplies and the economy.

Droughts in Pictures

Safety precautions • Cut water off to decorative fountains and ponds;• Only allow irrigation on certain days;• Reduce total irrigation water use;• Ban on planting new grass or replanting existing grass areas;• Total cutoff of all outdoor irrigation;• Increase costs for excessive water use;• Ban on filling or maintaining water level in pools unless they are covered

Quick Overview • Driven by these air-current cycles, Earth's water supply moves in a cycle of its own. When the sun heats the oceans, liquid water from the ocean's surface evaporates into water vapor in the air. The sun heats this air so that it rises through the atmosphere and is carried along by wind currents. As this water vapor rises, it cools down again, condensing into droplets of liquid water. Collections of these droplets are called clouds. If a cloud moves into a cooler environment, more water may condense onto these droplets. If enough water accumulates in this way, the droplets become heavy enough that they fall through the air as precipitation. Some of this water collects in large, underground reservoirs, but most of it forms rivers and streams that flow into the oceans, bringing the water back to its starting point.

Works cited • http://science.howstuffworks.com/flood1.htm • http://ims.ode.state.oh.us/ODE/IMS/Lessons/Content/CSC_LP_S01_BC_L07_I09_01.pdf • http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/programs/ragingplanet-hurricane/ • http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/edu/safety/tornadoguide.html

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Water Cycle and it’s affects on weather