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The Water Cycle Revisited

© Linda Bond

A Recycling Story

The next time you drink a glass of water, think about this: That water has been around the earth so many times it gives the term recycling an entirely new meaning! That's right. The water in your glass will have visited the upper reaches of our atmosphere, it will have rained down into a puddle somewhere in somebody's yard, it will have evaporated into a cloud and floated on the air currents for hundreds or thousands of miles, and it may have at sometime been part of somebody's sweat (ick), or, even worse, something's sweat, yuk!

This is definite proof that recycling works. Water goes around and around and around in a repeating cycle (hence the name Water Cycle) and has been doing so since the beginning of this planet's existence as a source of life. The water cycle is so important to life as we know it that there is much concern about anything that we might do to cripple this powerful natural engine. After all, rely on water to move soil around, to rain on our crops, and to fuel our hydroelectric dams. The temperature of our oceans has an impact on where and how water is moved around the planet, and so the concept of global warming and the possible changes occurring in our oceans right now are of great concern to many scientists and conservationists.

Water Distribution

Although Earth is a "water planet," fresh water is not evenly distributed around the globe. Some areas are so arid there is very little rainfall at any time in the year. These deserts are barely able to sustain life, and in some areas, there is almost no life at all. In other areas, of course, vast oceans of salt water still hold mysteries yet to be discovered if we are ever able to dive that deeply, and contain whole mountain ranges made of underwater volcanoes. But the amount of fresh, or "potable," water available is a tiny percentage of the water on this planet. And since most of it is moving along river channels and into the salt oceans, if it were not replaced in the mountains as snow and if it did not fall in the form of rain, those rivers would soon run dry. And that's where the Water Cycle comes in, constantly removing water from the oceans through evaporation, transporting it in the form of clouds, and dropping it again in the form of precipitation.