Water is the most abundant compound on earth’s surface, covering nearly 70% of earth. Water can change states among liquid, vapor, and solid. The Water Cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle or H2O cycle is the circulation of water from the land to the sky and back again. The water moves from one reservoir to another, such as from river to ocean, or from the ocean to the atmosphere, by the physical processes of evaporation (and transpiration), condensation, precipitation and collection (or accumulation). In so doing, the water goes through different phases: liquid, solid, and gas. The water cycle involves the exchange of heat energy, which leads to temperature changes (climate change). By transferring water from one reservoir to another, the water cycle purifies water, replenishes the land with freshwater, and transports minerals to different parts of the globe.
Evaporation
When the water in rivers or lakes or the ocean get heat up due to sum it turns 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.
Condensation
The water vapor rises in the atmosphere and cools, forming tiny water droplets by a process called condensation. Those water droplets make up clouds.
Precipitation
Those tiny water droplets combine with each other and they grow larger. They eventually become too heavy to stay in the air. Then they fall to the ground as rain, snow, hail or sleet.
Collection
Most of the precipitation that falls becomes a part of the ocean or part of rivers, lakes, and streams that eventually lead to the ocean. Some of the snow and ice that falls as precipitation stays at the Earth surface in glaciers and other types of ice. Some of the precipitation seeps into the ground and becomes a part of the groundwater 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 begins.
Image source: https://www.enchantedlearning.com/wgifs/Watercycle.GIF
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