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Updated 11 October, 2003

Strategic Plan for the Climate Change Science Program Final Report, July 2003

Figure 5-1
from Annex C
(Graphics and Photography Source Information)

Figure 5-1: Conceptualization of the global water cycle and its interactions with all other components of the Earth-climate system. The figure illustrates the transport and transformation of water within the Earth system, and the distribution of freshwater over the Earth's surface. The cycling of water in the Earth system involves water in all three of its phases: solid (snow, ice), liquid (precipitation, the oceans, land water bodies, groundwater, rivers/lakes, etc.), and gaseous (atmospheric water vapor, fluxes between the atmosphere and the land surface in the form of evaporation, evapotranspiration from vegetation, and evaporation from the oceans). The water cycle operates on a continuum of time and space scales and exchanges large amounts of energy as water undergoes phase changes and is moved dynamically from one part of the Earth system to another. The energy exchanges involving water in all its phases include interactions with radiation and dynamics of the atmospheric circulation; together, they intertwine the water and energy cycles of the Earth system. Source: Paul Houser and Adam Schlosser, NASA GSFC.

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