KOMPAS.com – Earth is nicknamed the “blue planet” because it has abundant water. In contrast to other objects in the solar system, liquid water is abundant on Earth, and has supported millions of species to evolve and thrive.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), around 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water and 96.5% of the Earth’s water supply is in the ocean.
However, water is not only available at the “bottom”. As part of the hydrological cycle, water also moves into the atmosphere.
The amount of water in the Earth’s atmosphere
Currently, there are billions of gallons of water in Earth’s atmosphere, most of it in the form of steam. If they all fell at once, this would cause huge problems for millions of Earth’s inhabitants.
According to the USGS, the volume of all water on Earth is estimated to be nearly 1.4 billion cubic km. Due to the hydrological cycle, water on Earth never stays in one place for too long. It evaporates, turns into vapor, condenses to form clouds, and falls back to the surface as precipitation.
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Evaporated water remains in the atmosphere for about 10 days. This means that the atmosphere contains a lot of water vapor.
According to Frédéric Fabry, director of the J. Stewart Marshall Radar Observatory, on average, about 30 mm of rain in the form of vapor falls at any point on the Earth’s surface.
This means about 25 kg of water for every square meter, most of which is in the form of steam. Considering that the Earth’s surface area is around 510 million square km, it is estimated that there are around 37.5 million billion gallons of water in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Fabry explained that the amount of water in the atmosphere is controlled by the balance between the flow entering the atmosphere and the flow leaving.
Flow through the atmosphere is controlled by evaporation from the Earth’s surface, which depends on temperature and the availability of water at the surface.
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Evaporating water requires a lot of energy and this energy comes from the heat of the atmosphere, so warm oceans are where the evaporation rate is greatest, and the Arctic land area is where the evaporation is least.
Fabry added that the average amount of water in the atmosphere can vary according to season and location, but in general, tropical oceans and wet tropical areas have the most water vapor.
Other factors at play are geology and topography, such as sloping terrain, which influence the speed at which air moves up into the atmosphere, where it cools.
As a result, mountainous areas facing the wind receive more rainfall.
Additionally, climate change will also likely affect the amount of vapor in the atmosphere in the coming decades.
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The reason is, if the temperature gets warmer, evaporation from the surface will increase, as will the amount of water in the atmosphere.
Thus, global warming could accelerate. The reason is, water vapor is a very effective greenhouse gas, and if there is more of it in the atmosphere, it will contribute to warming and increase the greenhouse effect.
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2023-10-13 11:30:00
#Water #Earths #Atmosphere #Kompas.com
