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Groundwater is fresh water located in the subsurface pore space of soil and rocks.It is also water that is flowing within aquifers below the water table.Sometimes it is useful to make a distinction between groundwater that is closely associated with surface water, and deep groundwater in an aquifer (called "fossil water" if it infiltrated into the ground millennia ago [8]).
Most water in Earth's atmosphere and crust comes from saline seawater, while fresh water accounts for nearly 1% of the total. The vast bulk of the water on Earth is saline or salt water, with an average salinity of 35‰ (or 3.5%, roughly equivalent to 34 grams of salts in 1 kg of seawater), though this varies slightly according to the amount of runoff received from surrounding land.
One factor in estimating when water appeared on Earth is that water is continually being lost to space. H 2 O molecules in the atmosphere are broken up by photolysis, and the resulting free hydrogen atoms can sometimes escape Earth's gravitational pull. When the Earth was younger and less massive, water
NASA says its scientists found that water on Jupiter-family Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, the first comet to be orbited and landed upon by robotic spacecraft from Earth, had a similar ...
The water cycle (known scientifically as the hydrologic cycle) is the continuous exchange of water within the hydrosphere, between the atmosphere, soil water, surface water, groundwater, and plants. Water moves perpetually through each of these regions in the water cycle consisting of the following transfer processes:
Atmospheric rivers that move large volumes of water vapor over long distances are an example of advection. [7] Condensation: The transformation of water vapor to liquid water droplets in the air, creating clouds and fog. [8] Evaporation: The transformation of water from liquid to gas phases as it moves from the ground or bodies of water into ...
Carbon dioxide also dissolves directly from the atmosphere into bodies of water (ocean, lakes, etc.), as well as dissolving in precipitation as raindrops fall through the atmosphere. When dissolved in water, carbon dioxide reacts with water molecules and forms carbonic acid, which contributes to ocean acidity. It can then be absorbed by rocks ...
Water can be polluted, abused, and misused but it is neither created nor destroyed, it only migrates. There is no evidence that water vapor escapes into space." [12]: 26 Every year the turnover of water on Earth involves 577,000 km 3 of water. This is water that evaporates from the oceanic surface (502,800 km 3) and from land (74,200 km 3).