ENVIRSC 2C03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Water Cycle, Vapor Pressure, Soil
21 Nov 2012
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Document Summary
Water, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur are important mass cycles in the earth-atmosphere system. The hydrologic or water cycle is the most important of all because survival on earth depends on it. Another important cycle which we have recently become concerned with is the carbon cycle. Water continuously moves between oceans, the atmosphere, the cryosphere and the land. The total amount of water on earth is constant, but it changes forms between liquid, gaseous, and solid forms. The movement of water between ocean, atmosphere and land reservoirs is called the hydrologic cycle. Water enters the atmosphere from land and ocean through evaporation, travels great distances in the form of water vapour and clouds and then returns to the surface through precipitation. The amount of water moved through the hydrologic cycle each year is roughly equivalent to about 1m depth of liquid water spread uniformly over the surface of the earth.
