THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE

CONCEPT
The hydrologic cycle is the continuous circulation of water throughout Earth and between Earth's systems. At various stages, waterwhich in most cases is
synonymous with the hydrospheremoves through the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the geosphere, in each case performing functions essential to the survival
of the planet and its life-forms. Thus, over time, water evaporates from the oceans; then falls as precipitation; is absorbed by the land; and, after some period of
time, makes its way back to the oceans to begin the cycle again. The total amount of water on Earth has not changed in many billions of years, though the
distribution of water does. The water that we see, though vital to humans and other living things, makes up only about 0.0001% of the total volume of water on
Earth; far more is underground and in other compartments of the environment.

HOW IT WORKS
Water and the Hydrosphere
As we have noted, water and the hydrosphere are practically synonymous, but not completely so. The hydrosphere is the sum total of water on Earth, except for
that portion in the atmosphere. This combines all water undergroundwhich, as we shall see, constitutes the vast majority of water on the planetas well as all
freshwater in streams, rivers, and lakes; saltwater in seas and oceans; and frozen water in icebergs, glaciers, and other forms of ice (see Glaciology).
It is almost unnecessary to point out that water is essential to life. Human bodies, after all, are almost entirely made of water, and without water we would die much
sooner than we would if we were denied food. Humans are not the only organisms dependent on water; whereas there are forms of life designated
as anaerobic, meaning that they do not require oxygen, virtually nothing that lives can survive independent of water. Thus, the biosphere, which combines all living
things and all recently deceased things, is connected intimately with the hydrosphere.

WATER ON EARTH.
Throughout most of the modern era of scientific studyfrom the 1500s, which is to say most of the era of useful scientific study in all of human historyit has
been assumed that water is unique to Earth. Presumably, if and when we found life on another planet, that planet also would contain water. But until that time, so it
was assumed, we could be assured that the only planet with life was also the only planet with water.
In the latter part of the twentieth century, however, as evidence began to gather that Mars contains ice crystals on its surface, this exclusive association of water
with Earth has been challenged. As it turns out, frozen water exists in several places within our solar systemas well it might, since water on Earth had to arrive
from somewhere. It is believed, in fact, that water arrived on Earth at a very early stage, carried on meteors that showered the planet from space (see the entries
Planetary Science and Sun, Moon, and Earth).
Since about three billion years ago, the amount of water on Earth has remained relatively constant. The majority of that water, however, is not in the biosphere, the
atmosphere, or what we normally associate with the hydrosphere that is, the visible rivers, lakes, oceans, and ice formations on Earth's surface. Rather, the
largest portion of water on Earth is hidden away in the geospherethat is, the upper portion of Earth's crust, on which humans live and from which we obtain the
minerals and grow the plants that constitute much of the world we know.

Water Compartments in the Environment

In the course of circulating throughout Earth, water passes from the hydrosphere to the atmosphere. It does so through the processes of evaporation and
transpiration. The first of these processes, of course, is the means whereby liquid water is converted into a gaseous state and transported to the atmosphere,
while the second onea less familiar termis the process by which plants lose water through their stomata, small openings on the undersides of leaves. Earth
scientists sometimes speak of the two as a single phenomenon, evapotranspiration.
Evaporation and transpiration, as well as the process whereby such moisture is returned to the solid earththat is, precipitationare discussed in the essay
Evapotranspiration and Precipitation.
Still, the atmosphere is just one of several "compartments" in which water is stored within the larger environment. Among the other important places in which water
is found are the oceans and other surface waters, ice in its many forms, and aquifers. The latter are underground rock formations in which groundwaterwater
resources that occupy pores in bedrockis stored.

IMBALANCES IN THE SYSTEM.

The total amount of water in all these compartments is fixed, but water moves readily between various compartments through the processes of evaporation,
precipitation, and surface and subsurface flows. The hydrologic cycle is thus a system all its own, a "system" (in scientific terms) being any set of interactions that
can be set apart mentally from the rest of the universe for the purposes of study, observation, and measurement. Its net input and output balance each other.
There may be imbalances of input and output in particular areas, which will manifest as drought or flooding.
Flooding, as well as other aspects of the hydrosphere and its study, is discussed in the essay Hydrology. As for drought, its immediate cause is a lack of
precipitation, though other causes can be responsible for the removal of water from the local environment. For instance, at present a large portion of Earth's water
is tied up in glaciers and other ice formations, but at other times in the planet's history this ice has been melted, leaving much of the continental mass that we know
today submerged under water (see Glaciology).

ACCOUNTING FOR EARTH'S WATER.

Earth's total water supplies are so large that instead of being measured by gallons or other units of volume, they are measured in terms of tons or metric tons,
designated as tonnes. Nonetheless, for comparison's sake, consider the following figures in light of the fact that a gallon (3.8 l) of water weighs 8.4 lb. (3.8 kg). A
ton contains 238 gal., and a tonne has 1,000 l.
Just as heat from the Sun accounts for the lion's share of Earth's total energy budget (see Energy and Earth), the vast majority of water on Earth comes from the
deep lithosphere, the upper layer of Earth's interior, comprising the crust and the brittle portion at the top of the mantle. In this vast region are contained
2.76 1019 tons (2.5 1019 tonnes). This figure, equal to 27.6 billion billion tons, is about 94.7% of the global total.
The next largest compartment is the oceans, which contain 1.41 1018 tons (1.38 1018 tonnes), or 5.2% of the total. Ice caps, glaciers, and icebergs contain
1.74 1016 tons (0.017 1016 tonnes), thus accounting for most of the remaining 0.1% of Earth's water. Beyond these amounts are much smaller quantities
representing shallow groundwater (2.76 1014 tons, or 2.5 1014tonnes); inland surface waters, such as lakes and rivers (2.76 1013 tons, or 2.5 1013 tonnes);
and the atmosphere (1.43 1013 tons, or 1.3 1013tonnes)