78%The ocean holds 97% of the total water on the planet; 78% of global precipitation occurs over the ocean, and it is the source of 86% of global evaporation.
water bodiesAbout 90 percent of water in the atmosphere is produced by evaporation from water bodies, while the other 10 percent comes from transpiration from plants.
Despite dramatic flash flooding after big storms, studies of the fate of precipitation over long periods and large regions, show that only about 35% of it becomes runoff in streams and rivers. About 65% returns to the atmosphere as water vapor.
Gravity causes precipitation to fall from clouds and water to flow downward on the land through watersheds. Energy from the sun and the force of gravity drive the continual cycling of water among these reservoirs. As the water is heated, it changes state from a liquid to a gas.
Evaporation and Precipitation The mid-latitude regions of the oceans tend to be dominated by evaporation under the trade winds. These regions supply water to the atmosphere, which transports it to a low latitude rainfall region known as the “Inter-tropical Convergence Zone” (ITCZ).
After all, the large surface area of the oceans (over 70 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by the oceans) provides the opportunity for large-scale evaporation to occur. On a global scale, the amount of water evaporating is about the same as the amount of water delivered to the Earth as precipitation.
When the ground cannot absorb the rainfall, and it does not evaporate, the water flows over the surface into lakes and rivers as ______. False. Precipitation exceeds evaporation.
How does the average amount of water that returns to the oceans by precipitation compare to the water that leaves by evaporation? Evaporation is greater than precipitation.
When precipitation falls, water may not immediately soak in, run off, or evaporate. Running water is the single most important erosional agent sculpting Earth's land surface. The Nile River in Africa is a stream. Maximum velocity occurs when the stream is at the bankful stage.
Precipitation is water released from clouds in the form of rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow, or hail. It is the primary connection in the water cycle that provides for the delivery of atmospheric water to the Earth. Most precipitation falls as rain.
After the precipitation reaches the surface of Earth, it does one of four things. It can either be absorbed by plants, percolate through the soil to become ground water, run off the surface into streams and rivers--becoming surface water and eventually flowing into the oceans, or evaporate.
What part of the water cycle is driven by gravity? Most precipitation falls back into the oceans or onto land where due to gravity the precipitation flows over the ground as surface runoff. A portion of runoff enters rivers in valleys in the landscape with streamflow moving water towards the oceans.