Issues Affecting the Climate of St. Louis and the Bi-State Area

Evaporation- when water evaporates in the form of water vapor by the heat of the

Below freezing air is used to make snow and snowflakes. Moisture from lakes and oceans to form clouds.warm, rising air to form precipitation.

Growing up, we all went through the water cycle lesson and we will never forget it. The reason being, we encounter the water cycle throughout our entire life and it will always effect our systems and more importantly our water system. As illustrated in the picture, our water cycle includes the processes of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, which then goes to many places. During evaporation, the sun is used as a main power to make this happen. The sun’s rays beat down onto the ground creating all of the moisture and water to fizzle into a gas state into the atmosphere and get stored away into the clouds. When it is stored into the clouds it is condensing. Condensation means that the gas is again forming itself back into its liquid state to get ready to return to Earth. The condensation then forms into precipitation. Precipitation comes in many different forms. You can see it as rain, snow, sleet, or hail making its way back to us. What happens to it then depends on the area. The water might end up as runoff, or become

It is best described as water evaporating into the atmosphere and continues to condense into the clouds. It will than fall back to earth as precipitation. This precipitation soaks down into the soil as a process called infiltration, where it joins the groundwater, or it will run off over the landscape to join surface water. The surface water may evaporate out of the lake and back into the atmosphere or the water will move through the soil towards the groundwater and be taken up by plants that will put it back into the atmosphere. This process will just keep continuing and continuing over and

Definition of rate of evaporation. How it changes as temperature changes. Therate of evaporationcan be defined as the number of water molecules that change phase from liquid to gas each second. The rate of evaporation is mainly set by the temperature of the liquid water.The higher the temperature of the liquid water, the faster the rate of evaporation. Definition of rate of condensation. How it changes as vapor pressure (a measure the amount of the gas water vapor above the liquid surface) changes. Therate of condensationcan be defined as the number of water vapor molecules that change phase from gas to liquid each second. The rate of condensation depends mainly on the vapor pressure in the space above the liquid surface. Thus, the higher the concentration of water vapor molecules above the liquid surface, the faster the rate of condensation. What is meant by saturation Why will a closed system like this always move toward saturation with respect to water vapor You may take saturation to mean the capacity or maximum amount of water vapor that will can exist in the air at a particular temperature. It is important to understand that saturation vapor pressure (or the maximum amount of water vapor that can be in the air) increases exponentially as temperature

From the surface of the river, the water, with the help of heat provided by the sun, can evaporate and go up into the Earth’s atmosphere. From the clouds, the water can now fall back down onto land or a body of water as precipitation. Going back to the basin, the water can also travel to a new site after it is consumed by an animal, such as a bear or otter, living near the river. From here, it will eventually have to leave its body as urine or fecal matter. Once again starting the cycle, this time as underground, near the river, the water can be taken up by the roots of plants such as trees or grass. Next, the water can leave the plant through transpiration and go into the Earth’s atmosphere. The water cycle doesn’t go in a perfect circle, and there are many options and paths for water to take as it travels from location to

Cloud falls into is the precipitation category. “Water vapor, droplets of water suspended in the air, builds up in the Earth 's atmosphere. Water vapor in the atmosphere is visible as clouds and fog” (http://nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/condensation/). Precipitation the process when water is released from clouds in different types such as rain, snow, hail or sleet.

Cloud seeding is when a cloud gets seeded with chemicals to produce more rain. For a cloud to produce rain the temperature in the cloud needs to be below the freezing point of water. When reached below the freezing point the cooled water has meet specks of dust,

That's where most of the liquid water on the surface is, right? Evaporation is the process by which water is converted from its liquid state to the gaseous state, also known as water vapor. In other words, water leaves the Earth's surface and enters the atmosphere as a

The water released from the clouds in the form of rain, sleet, snow or hail is called precipitation. For the formation of precipitation millions of droplets coalesce into drops large enough so as to sustain themselves during their descent. Two mechanisms have been put forth to explain this phenomenon, which are explained as follows:

In this picture you can see the water cycle creates rain. This happens because the water turns to water vapor and then water vapor turns to clouds. Clouds lose their water when it rains or snows. This happens because the water vapor condenses.

As the warmer air rises it gets further away from the earth and in to thinner atmosphere where it is colder. When the air reaches these high altitudes the molecules lose energy (heat) and slow down slowly coming back towards one another joining together as water molecules, becoming heavier and they begin to sink back towards the Earth most commonly known as rain. If you have been inside a two story house and gone upstairs you probably have noticed that the upstairs is much hotter than the downstairs, this is caused by convection. The cooled air, usually by an air conditioner, releases air molecules with less energy and it diffuses throughout the house and any warm air is pushed upwards but is usually trapped by the roof of the house.

HYDROLOGIC CYCLE The hydrologic cycle is a constant movement of water above, on, and below the earth's surface. It is a cycle that replenishes ground water supplies. It begins as water vaporizes into the atmosphere from vegetation, soil, lakes, rivers, snowfields and oceans-a process called evapotranspiration. As the water vapor rises it condenses to form clouds that return water to the land through precipitation: rain, snow, or hail. Precipitation falls on the earth and either percolates into the soil or flows across the ground. Usually it does both. When precipitation percolates into the soil it is called infiltration when it flows across the ground it is called surface run off. The amount of precipitation that infiltrates, versus the

Advection fog, conditions call for hot and humid air to blow over a cool surface, since the surface cools the air. The dew point temperature has to be cool enough as the air temperature which causes condensation to form and creates a dense fog to form. “As the warm air cools, the temperature will reach the dew point temperature, forcing the water vapor to condense into a cloud.” (Masters, 2016)

In nature, water continuously moves between the Earth and atmosphere through a process known as the hydrologic cycle. Evaporation and transportation cause water to rise, as warm air rises it becomes cooler and causes condensation, the droplets increase in size until the upward movement of air cannot support it (nucleation), and thus falls to the ground. It should be noted that warm air has the ability to hold more vapor than cold air and cloud formation occurs due to air becoming supersaturated. Conversely, nucleation does not always occur due to the cloud not being cold enough, we are then introduced to the process of cloud seeding (Lenschow).