The Water Cycle

a) Once the sun heats a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or river the water evaporates back into the air, once that happens the water vapor condenses and form into clouds, once enough water condenses the droplets become heavy and turn into rain, snow, sleet, hail and so on. Then the cycle repeats again and again and again.

"Evaporation"- is when a liquid (water) changes into a state of gas and the water became water vapor.
"Transpiration"- is the process of evaporation through plant leaves which adds to the water vapor in the air.
"Condensation"- happens when gas changes to a liquid and the temperature of a vapor decreases. (opposite of evaporation).
'Precipitation"- water released from clouds. (such as rain, snow, or hail).
"Infiltration"-  Water is filtered out. (cleaned)
"Surface runoff"- The water returns back to the oceans or lakes.
"Groundwater"- the underground movement of water.
"Absorption"- when water (rain,sleet,snow) is absorbed into the ground.

http://www.angelfire.com/nj/PflommScience/H20Cycle.htm
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html

 b) River water always flows downhill. Groundwater (aquifer) "moves sideways--but still downhill very slowly" underground. http://chamisa.freeshell.org/flow.htm
Water in the wetlands is always just still water that's basically just flood water that never dries up due to all the rain, but floods often. Lake water is also very still water that can also flood due to heavy rains, freeze and turn into ice at 32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Celsius. Lake water is also sometimes water that rivers flow into, but that's based on the location of the river or lake. http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html

c) There are two types of rivers and streams, White water ("lightly acidic to neutral pH 6.3-7.0") and black water rivers ("pH between 3.5-6"). http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0602.htm. The black water rivers are the considerably the cleanest waters in the world. River erosion is the "gradual removal of rock material from the river banks and bed". http://library.thinkquest.org/20035/river.htm
 





http://www.sawater.com.au/NR/rdonlyres/657AC917-D6E3-4E55-AAD1-38119A0ACBB4/0/diag_water_cycle.gif

http://www.osovo.com/diagram/water_cycle.jpg

















http://www.biofuelswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/water-cycle.gif


Bibliographies
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html

http://www.angelfire.com/nj/PflommScience/H20Cycle.htm

http://chamisa.freeshell.org/flow.htm

http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0602.htm

http://www.groundwater.org/kc/gwwatercycle.html

http://library.thinkquest.org/20035/river.htm

Earthquakes and Volcanoes

a) Scientist use portable GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers to track the flow of volcanoes in residential areas. GPS use "radio waves from global positioning system satellites to determine the position of the receiver on the Earth's surface." http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/01424/how_are_volcanoes_measured.htm
Earthquakes strength and location are determined by a seismograph. "a seismograph is equipped with sensors that can detect ground motions caused by seismic waves capable of detecting ground motion as small as 1 billionth of a meter. http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/01424/how_are_earthquakes_measured.htm


b) There are 3 types of magma

1. "Basaltic magma --  SiO₂ 45-55 wt%, high in Fe, Mg, Ca, low in K, Na
   
2. Andesitic magma --  SiO₂ 55-65 wt%, intermediate. in Fe, Mg, Ca, Na, K
   
3. Rhyolitic magma --  SiO₂ 65-75%, low in Fe, Mg, Ca, high in K, Na"

http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol204/volcan&magma.htm .


Magmas can form into the earth if the earth is hot enough to melt the rocks.  Magma is an naturally occuring liquid such as water, the difference is however magma pollutes the earth and is a very high temperature.


c) Volcanoes effect the earths atmosphere by "pumping dust and various types of gases into the air when they erupt." http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1997-05/860504639.Es.r.html
The smaller dust particles in the upper atmosphere or stratosphere may be there for weeks or months until they settle out, but until then they block the sunlight and cool large areas of the earth. They also release alot of gases into the air which pollutes the environment. So if there was alot of volcanic eruptions in a little period of time it would cause alot of problems to the earth such as "the carbon dioxide levels may contribute to global warming."http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1997-05/860504639.Es.r.html 
Volcanoes also effect the hydrosphere when they erupt because they can cause a discharge that pollutes the water supply.

 http://egsc.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/teach-pack/volcanoes/poster/graphics/posterfig1.jpg

http://integratedresourcesolutions.net/volcanoes1.gif

 

http://landofthedinosaurs.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/volcano.jpg

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_4130000/newsid_4132300/4132319.stm




Bibliographies
http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/01424/how_are_volcanoes_measured.htm 

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1997-05/860504639.Es.r.html

http://rlybest2.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-do-volcanoes-change.html

http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol204/volcan&magma.htm .

Bad Astronomy Post

Facts i thought were true.
1. I thought that the astronaut getting blinded by the sun was factual. After looking it up on the Bad Astronomy website I found out i was incorrect.

2. I didn't think they're was any gravity on a commet because, they're in outer space and nothing else really has gravity. I was correct

Facts i thought were incorrect.
1. I thought that the moon rotated at a different pace of the earth but i learned that they moved at the same rate which makes sense since every night the moons out around the same time.

2. I didn't think  the speed of the comet was correct. i was right because the comet would of been moving a lot faster than it showed in the movie.

space object powerpoint

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AfqMTajO9yDdZDNodDdial8xZ2c2bmZwY3g&hl=en

Connection of 2 Greenbook Climate Labs

Activity 1- We measured the heat absorbed by three of the different materials in pie pans. The materials that we used were dirt water and sand. My results were as i expected. The water raised and fell in temperature the slowest. The sand and the dirt were pretty equal. They both absorbed the heat and cooled off pretty quick.

Activity 4- We measured the heat inside 3 different atmospheres. They all had different environmental qualities to them each doing something else. The bottle was the "atmosphere" the paint was the clouds, and the water was the "ocean or lake". Although our bottle had all 3 of these the temperature barely fluctuated at all. At first the temperature inside rose at a steady pace upwards, but halfway through it stopped making no change at all. I figured the temperature would rise inside because it was being baked by the light but due to the "clouds" the light was reflected.

Then activities show the earths climate, even though it is different in the actual breakdown of climate effects. Overall small variables = small results. My climate topic is tropical storms which would be very hard to do in a lab due to the wind and rain required to be an actual storm. I would have no idea how to even test this besides maybe using a fan as the strong winds and having water inside a bottle be waves caused by the storm.

Climate Inquiry

-Enviromental Defense Foundation

Earth's water cycle has been pushed to its limit. The amount of water evaporating off the land and into the atmosphere hit a maximum 12 years ago and is now in decline, new calculations show.

Martin Jung of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, and colleagues calculated trends in evapotranspiration – the amount of water vapour that entered the atmosphere – between 1982 and 2008. This moisture is either evaporated off the land by the sun's heat or released by plants.

They found that evapotranspiration rose steadily until 1998, as would be expected in a warming global climate. But the trend reversed in 1998, and the amount of moisture being cycled into the atmosphere began to drop.

Team member Steven Running of the University of Montana in Missoula says that in some regions, rising temperatures have sucked all the available water out of the ground. Though that moisture returns to the ground as rain, most of it falls elsewhere, leaving dry regions like Australia parched.

- Water Cycle Goes Bust As The World Gets Warmer

-October 10, 2010

-Michael Marshall

-http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19565-water-cycle-goes-bust-as-the-world-gets-warmer.html

 

 Very interesting article was posted not too long ago on Physorg.com about a recent study about 'missing' heat energy. The study was led by NCAR's Kevin Trenberth.
Roughly half of the world's heat energy that has built up over recent years is unaccounted for, according to the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, and by NASA.
This 'missing' heat energy is likely building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system on earth that current observational tools such as satellite sensors and ocean floats are unable to track.

Excerpts from the Physorg.com article.....
Satellite instruments indicate that greenhouse gases are continuing to trap more solar energy, or heat, but scientists since 2003 have been unable to determine where much of that heat is going.
Either the satellite observations are incorrect, says Trenberth, or, more likely, large amounts of heat are penetrating to regions that are not adequately measured, such as the deepest parts of the oceans. Compounding the problem, Earth's surface temperatures have largely leveled off in recent years. Yet melting glaciers and Arctic sea ice, along with rising sea levels, indicate that heat is continuing to have profound effects on the planet.
Tracking the growing amount of heat on Earth is far more complicated than measuring temperatures at the planet's surface. The oceans absorb about 90 percent of the solar energy that is trapped by greenhouse gases. Additional amounts of heat go toward melting glaciers and sea ice, as well as warming the land and parts of the atmosphere. Only a tiny fraction warms the air at the planet's surface.
Until 2003, the measured heat increase was consistent with computer model expectations. But a new set of ocean monitors since then has shown a steady decrease in the rate of oceanic heating, even as the satellite-measured imbalance between incoming and outgoing energy continues to grow.
Some of the missing heat appears to be going into the observed melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as Arctic sea ice, the authors say. Some of the missing heat may be deep in the oceans.
-------
"Global warming at its heart is driven by an imbalance of energy: more solar energy is entering the atmosphere than leaving it," says NCAR scientist John Fasullo. "Our concern is that we aren't able to entirely monitor or understand the imbalance. This reveals a glaring hole in our ability to observe the build-up of heat in our climate system."
"The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later," says NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, the lead author. "The reprieve we've had from warming temperatures in the last few years will not continue.
---------
Heads Up!

http://global-warming.accuweather.com/

Pre Water Treatment Blog

 1. the water is Pumped and contained then it goes thru screening, then it gets stored then pre-conditioned, then it is pre-chlorinatined.


 
2.) It is collected and transported via a network of pipes and pump stations to a municipal treatment plant.

 
3.) What is micron rating?
How often should we clean out our septic tank?