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As the brightness of the early Sun increased, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere increased, increasing the temperature and consequently increasing the evaporation of the ocean, leading eventually to the situation in which the oceans evaporated. This scenario helps to explain why there is little water vapor in the atmosphere of Venus today.
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 plant stomata) are collectively termed evapotranspiration. Evaporation of water occurs when ...
Many physical processes over ocean surface generate sea salt aerosols. One common cause is the bursting of air bubbles, which are entrained by the wind stress during the whitecap formation. Another is tearing of drops from wave tops. [19] The total sea salt flux from the ocean to the atmosphere is about 3300 Tg (3.3 billion tonnes) per year. [20]
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]
Overview of climatic changes and their effects on the ocean. Regional effects are displayed in italics. [1] This NASA animation conveys Earth's oceanic processes as a driving force among Earth's interrelated systems. There are many effects of climate change on oceans. One of the most important is an increase in ocean temperatures.
The ocean absorbs part of the energy from sunlight as heat and is initially absorbed by the surface. [13] Eventually a part of this heat also spreads to deeper water. Greenhouse gases absorb extra energy from the sun, which is again absorbed by the oceans, leading to an increase in the amount of heat stored by the oceans. The increase of ...
The brilliance of comet tails comes largely from water vapor. On approach to the Sun, the ice many comets carry sublimes to vapor. Knowing a comet's distance from the sun, astronomers may deduce the comet's water content from its brilliance. [64] Water vapor has also been confirmed outside the Solar System.
Its surface water is insufficiently saline to sink lower than several hundred meters, meaning deep ocean water must come from elsewhere. [18] Ocean water in the North Atlantic is more saline than that in the Pacific, partly because extensive evaporation on the surface concentrates salt within the remaining water and partly because sea ice near ...