What happened in the discovery of the water cycle in 1861?

Answer 1

? The general consensus of scientists and historians is that the discovery of the "water cycle" took place in 1582. This discovery is attributed to the Frenchman, Bernard Palissy, who wrote about the water cycle in his book, Discours Admirables

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In this book, Palissy clears up previous misunderstandings by documenting his observations of water in nature, and stating that rain and melting snow were the only sources from which springs and rivers derived their waters:

“When I had long and closely examined the source of the springs of natural fountains, and the place whence they could come, I finally understood that they could not come from or be produced by anything but rains. (Palissy, 1957, p. 48)

Palissy gave us the first clear definition of the water cycle and its relative parts of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, ground infiltration, surface run-off and ground- water storage and flow toward the surface in rivers and springs.

An important aspect of Palissy’s water cycle observations is his keen understanding of cycles in nature, and his writings about the discontinuity between rainfall and river flow, with confused previous scholars. In Palissy’s words:

“… rain water that falls on mountains, lands, and all places that slope towards rivers or fountains, do not get to them so very quickly. For if it were so, all fountains would go dry in summer: but because the waters that fell on the land in winter cannot flow quickly, but sink little by little until they have found the ground floored by something, and when they have found rock they follow its slope, going into the rivers. From this

it follows that under these rivers there are many continual springs, and in this way, not being able to flow except little by little, all springs are fed from the end of one winter to the next. (Palissy, 1957, p. 68)

About one-hundred years after Palissy’s discovery of the water cycle definition, renowned scientist, Edmund Halley, as well as other scientists, confirmed Palissy’s definition as being accurate.

Thus, we can say, with reasonable accuracy, that Bernard Palissy’s discovery and definition of the water cycle is the definition that has been taught for over 430 years.

The clouds floating overhead contain water vapor and cloud droplets, which are small drops.

Answer 2

The clouds floating overhead contain water vapor and cloud droplets, which are small drops of condensed water. These droplets are way too small to fall as precipitation, but they are large enough to form visible clouds. Water is continually evaporating and condensing in the sky. If you look closely at a cloud you can see some parts disappearing (evaporating) while other parts are growing (condensation). Most of the condensed water in clouds does not fall as precipitation because their fall speed is not large enough to overcome updrafts which support the clouds. For precipitation to happen, first tiny water droplets must condense on even tinier dust, salt, or smoke particles, which act as a nucleus. Water droplets may grow as a result of additional condensation of water vapor when the particles collide. If enough collisions occur to produce a droplet with a fall velocity which exceeds the cloud updraft speed, then it will fall out of the cloud as precipitation. This is not a trivial task since millions of cloud droplets are required to produce a single raindrop. A more efficient mechanism (known as the Bergeron-Findeisen process) for producing a precipitation-sized drop is through a process which leads to the rapid growth of ice crystals at the expense of the water vapor present in a cloud. These crystals may fall as snow, or melt and fall as rain.

Answer 3

In 1861, John Tyndall conducted experiments that demonstrated the process of evaporation and condensation in the atmosphere. He discovered that water vapor played a crucial role in regulating Earth's temperature through the greenhouse effect, thus contributing to the understanding of the water cycle.

Answer 4

The water cycle is not an idea that was discovered at any one time, and the ideas go back beyond the 1980's.

Answer 5

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