Is the water cycle dependent on energy transfer?

Answer 1

Yes it is. Heat from the sun warms up lakes, rivers, and the oceans as well as land surfaces such as forests, grass and croplands. These surfaces then heat the air above them. This heated air rises drawing up water the water from these surfaces into the air. Air heats up differently over different surfaces, and this is what causes the wind. The warming air rises creating a low pressure center, where as a nother surface is cooler and the colder air aloft sinks creating a high pressure center. Wind is the energy of moving air from the cooler high to the warmer low. As the warmer air rises, it begins to cool and as it cools the amount of water in can hold drops. When it reaches a certain altitude and the the colder air can no longer hold the water it contains, it condenses out as clouds. Air moving aloft, like the jet stream; high altitud high speed winds move the clouds along as more and more air is drawn up into the clouds the updraft winds can no longer hold the water aloft and it falls as rain or snow. If rain falls through a cold layer of air it could be cooled down to then fall to the ground as sleet. It becomes freezing rain only if it falls as liquid and hits the surfaces on the ground and immediately freezes on impact. The rain hits the ground and soaks in down to the water table. Some drains off into rivers and lakes or directly onto these bodies of water and oceans too. Rivers carry this water to the oceans and still more water waters the trees and the grasses and our crops. The warmth draws moisture up out of the ground into the plants and up from the plants back into the air forming clouds, the same directly from the lakes and rivers and oceans. And the water cycle starts all over again. But without energy transfer, the water cycle can't work. The heat energy of the sun is transferred into other forms of energy by the land, plants and other surfaces which then is converted kinetic energy as the air rises. This heat energy tranferring from one source to another, as well as converting one form of energy to another form. So you actually have two diferent energy connections to the water cycle, energy transfer and energy conversion.