WATER IN THE ATMOSPHERE

1. WATER IN THE ATMOSPHERE

4. WATER CYCLE • Water is always moving between the atmosphere and Earth’s surface. • This movement is known as the water cycle. • 3 major processes of the water cycle • Evaporation • Condensation • Precipitation

5. Evaporation • When liquid water changes into a gas. • This is also known as water vapor. • Water vapor usually comes from a body of water, such as, oceans, ponds, lakes, stream, or even puddles.

6. Condensation • Water vapor cools and condenses into liquid water. • These condensed water droplets clump together around tiny dust particles to form clouds.

7. Cumulus Clouds • Means “heap or mass” • Forms less than 2 km above the ground and can extend 18km up. • Indicates fair weather • Fluffy rounded piles • Cumulonimbus – often produce thunderstorms.

8. CUMULUS CLOUDS

9. STRATUS CLOUDS • Means “spread out” • Form flat layers • Cover all or most of the sky • As they thicken they may produce drizzle, rain, or snow

10. STRATUS CLOUDS

11. CIRRUS • High clouds • Wispy and feathery • Made mostly of ice crystals • Cirrocumulus: looks like a row of cotton balls • Often indicate a storm is on the way.

12. CIRRUS CLOUDS CIRROCUMULUS

13. Water droplets that get heavy enough to fall to the Earth’s surface. Forms of precipitation include: rain, snow, sleet, and hail. Most water molecules spend about 10 days in the atmosphere. Rain most common form of precipitation. Snow is water vapor that freezes directly into ice crystals. The ice crystals will clump together and form snowflakes. Sleet raindrops that freezes as they fall through the atmosphere. Hail starts as an ice pellet, as it falls through the atmosphere is melts and refreezes forming a hailstone. Precipitation

14. Rain needs to be at least .5mm in diameter Freezing rain is rain that freezes when it hits the ground not in the air. Precipitation ALWAYS comes from clouds, but not ALL clouds produce precipitation. PRECIP. CONTINUE