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Water vapor is an important greenhouse gas [18] [19] owing to the presence of the hydroxyl bond which strongly absorbs in the infra-red. Water vapor is the "working medium" of the atmospheric thermodynamic engine which transforms heat energy from sun irradiation into mechanical energy in the form of winds.
Familiar examples are the melting of ice or the boiling of water (the water does not instantly turn into vapor, but forms a turbulent mixture of liquid water and vapor bubbles). Yoseph Imry and Michael Wortis showed that quenched disorder can broaden a first-order transition. That is, the transformation is completed over a finite range of ...
Comparison of phase diagrams of carbon dioxide (red) and water (blue) showing the carbon dioxide sublimation point (middle-left) at 1 atmosphere. As dry ice is heated, it crosses this point along the bold horizontal line from the solid phase directly into the gaseous phase. Water, on the other hand, passes through a liquid phase at 1 atmosphere.
Water vapour from humid winter-air deposits directly into a solid, crystalline frost pattern on a window, without ever being liquid in the process. Deposition is the phase transition in which gas transforms into solid without passing through the liquid phase. Deposition is a thermodynamic process.
Water on the ground or in bodies of water turns back into water vapor through a process known as evaporation. Some water is also taken up by plants before evaporating into the atmosphere, a ...
An additional factor in determining the structure of water ice is deposition rate. Even if it is cold enough to form amorphous ice, crystalline ice will form if the flux of water vapor onto the substrate is less than a temperature-dependent critical flux. [168]
As snowflakes and hail, ice is a common form of precipitation, and it may also be deposited directly by water vapor as frost. The transition from ice to water is melting and from ice directly to water vapor is sublimation. These processes plays a key role in Earth's water cycle and climate.
The water cycle is powered from the energy emitted by the sun. This energy heats water in the ocean and seas. Water evaporates as water vapor into the air. Some ice and snow sublimates directly into water vapor. Evapotranspiration is water transpired from plants and evaporated from the soil. The water molecule H