Menu Close

Articles on Hydrological cycle

Displaying all articles

Water from the Mackenzie River, seen from a satellite, carries silt and nutrients from land to the Arctic Ocean. Jesse Allen/NASA Earth Observatory

Arctic rivers face big changes with a warming climate, permafrost thaw and an accelerating water cycle − the effects will have global consequences

A new study shows how thawing permafrost and intensifying storms will change how water moves into and through Arctic rivers.
Chemicals poured down the sink or pumped into the atmosphere can eventually end up in the groundwater, which means less available fresh water for us to use. Flickr/Kamil Porembiński

Curious Kids: how is water made?

While making small volumes of pure water in a lab is possible, it’s not practical. The reaction is expensive, releases lots of energy, and can cause really massive explosions.
As water vapour (gas) cools, it slows down. The small parts, the molecules, start to gather together, especially on cold things like a cool leaf. Flickr/Richard Nix

Curious Kids: What is dew?

When water turns from a gas into a liquid, it forms droplets. Whether those droplets are dew or rain depends on where the droplet forms.
Sometimes air goes up past the condensation level then falls back below the condensation level, then up, then below, again and again. This creates clouds that are stripy, often with lines between the clouds. Robert Lawry/Author provided

Curious Kids: where do clouds come from and why do they have different shapes?

Clouds formed by rising warm air currents are called ‘convection clouds’. Because of all the rising air coming up, these clouds can be bumpy on top, sometimes looking like cotton wool or cauliflower.

Top contributors

More