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In an enclosed environment, a liquid will evaporate until the surrounding air is saturated. Evaporation is an essential part of the water cycle. The sun (solar energy) drives evaporation of water from oceans, lakes, moisture in the soil, and other sources of water. In hydrology, evaporation and transpiration (which involves evaporation within ...
When the air temperature is high, the human body uses the evaporation of perspiration to cool down, with the cooling effect directly related to how fast the perspiration evaporates. The rate at which perspiration can evaporate depends on how much moisture is in the air and how much moisture the air can hold.
Liquid water that becomes water vapor takes a parcel of heat with it, in a process called evaporative cooling. [3] The amount of water vapor in the air determines how frequently molecules will return to the surface. When a net evaporation occurs, the body of water will undergo a net cooling directly related to the loss of water.
The processes that drive these movements are evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, sublimation, infiltration, surface runoff, and subsurface flow. In doing so, the water goes through different forms: liquid, solid and vapor. The ocean plays a key role in the water cycle as it is the source of 86% of global evaporation. [2]
As water evaporates from an area of Earth's surface, the air over that area becomes moist. Moist air is lighter than the surrounding dry air, creating an unstable situation. When enough moist air has accumulated, all the moist air rises as a single packet, without mixing with the surrounding air.
Surface and air temperatures, insolation, and wind all affect this. A dryland is a place where annual potential evaporation exceeds annual precipitation . Often a value for the potential evapotranspiration is calculated at a nearby climatic station on a reference surface, conventionally on land dominated by short grass (though this may differ ...
However, if one measuring 50-meters-wide and speeding towards Earth at roughly 9 miles per second exploded in the air, it would be rather catastrophic. The probable effect has been likened to just ...
The equilibrium vapor pressure is an indication of a liquid's thermodynamic tendency to evaporate. It relates to the balance of particles escaping from the liquid (or solid) in equilibrium with those in a coexisting vapor phase. A substance with a high vapor pressure at normal temperatures is often referred to as volatile. The pressure ...