Talk:Water cycle

Mention to the videos
I think the videos included in the "Description" section are very helpful to understand the water cycle. However, I think that in the preceding paragraph there should be mention to the videos, such as "the first video is from NASA and describes the water cycle of the Earth." I would like to others' opinions. Thank you. --Takayuki Toyama (talk) 17:15, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
 * We don't normally mention such videos in the text. Also, I felt we didn't need 4 of them. I have deleted 3, moved the one remaining video to the right and added a link to more videos under "see also". EMsmile (talk) 11:44, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Impact of drought in south Africa
Negative impact on farmers of south Africa 41.116.14.216 (talk) 17:38, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

How do people feel about the section "changes over time"?
I've just added two sub-headings to the section "changes over time" to make it clearer what this is all about. I am wondering if there would be interest to update the information about climate change in this section? It starts with an IPCC report from 2007 which feels a bit outdated, given that the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report has come out this year. I've also written about that here where we are discussing the sub-article effects of climate change on the water cycle (which so far is not very good): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climate_change#What_do_you_think_of_the_new-ish_article_Effects_of_climate_change_on_the_water_cycle%3F. I am personally not convinced if such a sub-article is needed at this stage, or if the information shouldn't be rather included in effects of climate change or in water cycle. EMsmile (talk) 13:04, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Advection addition
Add a sentence to the advection line- "Atmospheric rivers AR that move large volumes of water vapor over long distances is an example of advection. AquariusTom (talk) 01:04, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi User:AquariusTom OK, done (I didn't look into it more deeply, assumed you are right). Do you have more suggestions for improving this article? EMsmile (talk) 11:49, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes. In the article opening paragraph add the physical process transpiration to the listed physical processes. "...by the physical processes of evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, surface runoff, and subsurface flow."
 * I think it must be added as the current science does not emphasize the importance of transpiration by trees in the explanations of the water cycle. For example, in the article process graphic at the top right of the page, the student or reader would consider evaporation and atmospheric lift to high altitudes directly from the ocean surface as the dominant water process source. Because of the temperature inversion immediately upon the surface of the worlds oceans, water vapor cannot rise to high altitude. The water molecules that leave (evaporate from) the ocean surface are colder than the surrounding air and cannot rise. Moisture laden low altitude air returning with the trade wind entering the low pressure zone of the ITCZ being the exception. Trees of the three main equatorial rainforests provide the bulk of water for the atmospheric distribution around the world. Trees of the Amazon create an atmospheric river that moves off the South American coast that supply a continuous chain of thunderstorms whose tops or anvil heads provide moisture for the Hadley flow at high altitude. Subtropical jets move the moisture away from the ITCZ to provide the worlds major source of water.
 * More later but for now I just want transpiration added as a physical process in that sentence of the discussion. 2600:8807:9201:CAF2:5075:11CC:D6B6:4B32 (talk) 18:37, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The USGS graphic at the top right of the article should be replaced with a very similar USGS graphic that uses "transpiration" rather than "evapotranspiration". The trees in the other USGS graphic are somewhat larger and bolder color than the current version. That version of the graphic implies greater importance of transpiration as a water cycle process. Is there a way to post a copy that USGS graphic on this talk page so you and others can look it over?  AquariusTom (talk) 16:45, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi User:AquariusTom, thanks: I have now added transpiration to the sentence in the lead as per your suggestion. Can you post here a link to the other USGS graphic that you mentioned? Hopefully there would be no issue with its copyright, are all the USGS graphics in the public domain? EMsmile (talk) 10:36, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is the USGS graphic that would be an improvement. I think so because the term transpiration is used vs evapotranspiration. Some of the minor elements "dew" "sublimation" and others that are not noted processes are deleted.I think it makes a clearer picture of the overall process https://water.usgs.gov/edu/graphics/pagesizeenglish.jpg AquariusTom (talk) 01:28, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That looks good. Please go ahead and add it. Is it in the public domain / free of copyright? I couldn't find the website page where the image is located, is it somewhere here?:https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/publications ? Do you know how to add an image to a Wikipedia article? If not, take a look at my tutorial videos, e.g. Video number 1. EMsmile (talk) 09:05, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, in the USGS publications somewhere. I found that graphic with a google search. When using the link to page feature there is an error "not found" from the USGS site. Searching the USGS site pages for "water cycle" illustrations yields (in English) only the current 2019 version we are currently using. There are many other language versions of the graphic. The graphic I wanted to use is in the USGS water resources publications somewhere-but not used on any of the site pages- and I'll continue to search. My computer and the USGS site search don't get along for some reason. Very cumbersome. Anyhow, it should be ok to use the screen grab even if we can't download from the site. It has the USGS logo on it.
 * I don't know how to edit the article-it's locked for me now as I don't have 10 minor edits? I'll study your tutorial.
 * This illustrates my principal problem with the current water cycle explanation: most -including USGS- want evaporation to be the majority source to condensation when, in my view, transpiration is the principal or at least equal in terms of process importance. The graphics of evaporation to condensation is much more complicated than shown in the diagram. Those steps from ocean evaporation to condensation/precipitation should be detailed in the process discussions. I am writing up changes to the evaporation and transpiration process discussions. AquariusTom (talk) 11:55, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Re-arranged the article (September 2022)
I've just re-arranged the article a bit. I took out content that was deviating from the main topic, namely that content about the deep water cycle which has its own article. Let me know if you disagree with any of the big changes that I made today? I am undecided what to do about the section on "physical processes": it really is just a links list to related sub-articles, does it make sense like this? And should it be reworked so that each of those processes shows up in the table of content? I am undecided. Pinging User:ASRASR for suggestions. EMsmile (talk) 12:06, 28 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree that the physical processes section needs reworking. Currently, it is a list of definitions for physical processes that occur within the water cycle. This section does not look necessary and feels disruptive to the flow of the article. A more robust description in the "overall process" section with links to articles defining each physical process could improve the flow here. The "overall process" section could even be broken into subsections if building it out makes it into an overwhelming section of text. Do you think this structure make a bit more sense? Heathadr (talk) 23:38, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi User:Heathadr welcome to Wikipedia! I am glad you have an interest in this article. You can see from the history page that just last week I made quite a lot of changes to it. It still needs a lot of further work. If you can help that would be great. I wonder what the most suitable references we could use when we re-work the article: The water cycle is of course explained in numerous textbooks. But if we use content from such textbooks we have two problems 1) the textbooks are usually copyrighted so we cannot take content directly and 2) the textbooks are usually behind a paywall so our readers cannot easily verify the information that we provide. For this information I would prefer to rely more on open access publications. Do you have some publications in mind? EMsmile (talk) 10:45, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Also when you start working on this article, please keep a close eye on this sub-article: Effects of climate change on the water cycle. The two articles need to go hand in hand. So don't put too much about climate change here but just enough to provide all the right content, and then the details go into Effects of climate change on the water cycle? Will this work well? Alternatively, one could also argue that a separate article on Effects of climate change on the water cycle is counterproductive and that it should be merged into the main article. EMsmile (talk) 10:45, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think the individual processes should remain. As the separate process together add up to the water cycle in totality, each is separately important to understand. For example the evaporation process should be broken into two parts: evaporation from the oceans and evaporation from land. Transpiration needs a separate discussion as it occupies both land (rain forest) and ocean (mangrove forest). AquariusTom (talk) 17:01, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi again, User:AquariusTom your suggestions seem very good to me. I recommend: "be bold and go ahead and make the edits". I see you're still quite a new user. If you have any questions about how to edit or how to work with Wikipedia, please feel free to reach out to me (e.g. by sending an e-mail through the Wikipedia email system or by writing on my talk page). There are also these tutorial videos that I created a while ago which you might find useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Online_edit-a-thon_on_climate_change_-_November_2020#Help...!_I_have_never_edited_Wikipedia_before! . I'll also write on your talk page. EMsmile (talk) 10:39, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
 * When we edit, are the reference links required right away.\? I think I'll post the additions here at Talk first for review before edit. Both of my edits to evaporation process and the transpiration process are lengthy. Does that make the Talk page too messy? AquariusTom (talk) 23:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi AquariusTom, sorry for my delayed response. It's best to add the reference at the same time as adding new content. Make sure to use the "Cite > Automatic" tool as it's fast and easy for any reference that has a DOI number or a ISBN number. If you need help with adding refs, I have video tutorials for that. If you don't have the ref just yet but will probably have it soon, you could add this so that you (or others) don't forget:  . For "testing" of content you could use the talk page if it's short but perhaps to use your sandbox and then link to your sandbox from here. EMsmile (talk) 11:37, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Here is my sandbox entries for the Water Cycle article. As you can see from the critique by Dan Arnt, many problems. You can help me by editing a sentence- any sentence- and rewriting it so that it appears encyclopedic and not like an essay. I'm not sure I understand the difference. I thought the links to existing Wiki articles would be enough as those contain many references. Do references need to be repeated for every statement? Must the references be repeated from existing Wiki articles or must the reference be found outside of Wiki and different from the references of a linked Wiki article?. Any examples and changes required be appreciated. AquariusTom (talk) 17:56, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Here is my sandbox link User:AquariusTom/sandbox AquariusTom (talk) 18:00, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Your text seems to me to be a bit too long and detailed for inclusion in the high-level water cycle article. Could you envision a condensed version? Or would it fit better in an existing sub-article? To make it more encyclopedic you have to make each major statement verifiable, i.e. include a published reference. The text is not meant to be original research (see WP:OR). You can find the refs from scratch (e.g. Google Scholar) or copy them from another Wikipedia article. The other Wikipedia article itself cannot be a reference (i.e. Wikipedia articles are not regarded as a reliable source (see WP:RS). This water cycle article is actually a bit short on references. A better example could be the article climate change. Take a look at how many references it has! Pretty much every sentence has a reference. If not every sentence then at least every 2-3 sentences or at least every paragraph. - If you have other general editing questions, feel free to ask me by writing on your user talk page and pinging me with User:EMsmile. EMsmile (talk) 23:07, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * OK. Working to shorten verbiage and add references. AquariusTom (talk) 00:06, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, User:EMsmile. I don't think I can do any more work on the evaporation process because my understanding -or perhaps misunderstanding- of the process puts my thinking in direct conflict with the Wiki article on Climate Change and the Water cycle article "Water cycle intensification due to climate change". Those articles concludes that increasing temperatures will result in greater water vapor in the atmosphere because the warmer air can naturally hold more water vapor and as a result precipitation will be increasing and causing increased flooding. I think, to the contrary, the increased inversion intensity created by rising air temperatures over the ocean(s) surface means less water vapor in the atmosphere and is creating a weakened water cycle and more world drought. The IPCC report Chapter 8 Impact of Climate change on the Water Cycle -doesn't even mention the marine layer or inversion intensity with rising temperature and reiterates the overall impact as increased precipitation and flooding. So assuming the established and published Wiki article on Climate change is correct, it would be futile to argue otherwise. Who could argue with the IPPC conclusion that the hydrologic cycle will intensify? I could try to write the article parts for evaporation and transpiration but my bias would not do the subject justice. Someone else with an understanding that agrees with the Climate change article could do the evaporation and transpiration processes better than I. AquariusTom (talk) 21:44, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's probably true. But do you have any reliable sources that would back up the way you interpret the situation? I thought the intensification of the water cycle was pretty much a well-proven thing. EMsmile (talk) 22:26, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes intensification is occuring as reported in Chapter 8 of the IPCC report on Climate Change. The impact on the water cycle report- chapter 8-is based on the physical phenomenon that warmer air can hold more water vapor- up to 7 % more per degree C. And I would agree if there was a pathway for the water vapor at the ocean surface to get to the warmer atmosphere above. There are sources that describe the marine layer and temperature inversion imposed in that vast region of earth called the horse latitudes created by the descending and compressed air of the Hadley circulation; but no studies in the report that say the warmer atmosphere is going to make those regions grow in size. A warmer atmosphere, IMO, will mean more intense temperature inversion over the ocean surface and reduced transit of water vapor from ocean surface to atmosphere. The horse latitudes increase in size. I continue to look for sources that say the area of the descending dry air is expanding. Anecdotal news tells use that deserts are expanding. The Pacific high(s) off California and Peru/Chile are more persistent. Kenya and the Horn of Africa seem locked in perpetual drought. The European flooding 2021 and the Pakistan floods this year are caused by weak cold fronts that stall out allowing thunderstorm "training". For the northern hemisphere, the arctic or polar air is not cold enough nor is there enough of it to push the temperate horse latitude highs out of the way as the cold air attempts to move south. The cold front stalls out mid continent, creating the opportunity for flood. These floods are caused by climate change but not caused by worldwide increased precipitation. Previous to climate change, an Alberta clipper - a kind of North American cold front- could sweep across the continent in 3 days and freeze oranges in Florida. Today that event could take a week and most likely stall in the mid continent-never reaching the oranges of Florida. Briefly, my gut feeling is less precipitation. Considering the import of the IPCC report and my own bias, I can't give the article a positive effort. AquariusTom (talk) 03:38, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Yea, a gut feeling is unfortunately not a good basis for Wikipedia article editing... If you find suitable sources (WP:RS) they might be able to be included, but probably as "minority views", as per this guide: WP:DUE. Thanks for being open and honest about this and for respecting the Wikipedia guidelines for editing. Maybe you'll find content to add in future, or for other Wikipedia articles, that is more "main stream". EMsmile (talk) 10:59, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Large and small water cycle
Hi @EMsmile. I am part of a team intending to develop a series of articles on ecosystem restoration/regeneration for mitigating climate change. Michal Kravcik and others differentiate between the large and small water cycles with small water cycles creating the biotic pump. There is a biotic pump page which has "start" status. Would reference to the small cycle be of use? Or might it complicate improving the status of this page? PeterBruce-Iri (talk) 21:59, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * By the way, PeterBruce-Iri, regarding your statement "I am part of a team intending to develop a series of articles on ecosystem restoration/regeneration for mitigating climate change." This sounds interesting. Please tell us more about this on the talk page of WikiProject Climate Change? See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climate_change . EMsmile (talk) 10:37, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I've just written on the talk page of biotic pump as I'm not too sure that that article is needed under that name (note the very low pageviews and also low number of hits on Google). So it might be better to have a short section explaining this "large versus small water cycle concept" here, provided you have some good, reliable references for that. (Is it really so important to break down the water cycle into large and small? If so, please explain) EMsmile (talk) 11:40, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Reworked section on physical processes
I've just condensed the section on physical processes a bit. This was in response to an earlier discussion above which was: "I agree that the physical processes section needs reworking. Currently, it is a list of definitions for physical processes that occur within the water cycle. This section does not look necessary and feels disruptive to the flow of the article. A more robust description in the "overall process" section with links to articles defining each physical process could improve the flow here. The "overall process" section could even be broken into subsections if building it out makes it into an overwhelming section of text. Do you think this structure make a bit more sense?" by Heathadr. EMsmile (talk) 12:37, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: EEB 4611-Biogeochemical Processes-Spring 2024
— Assignment last updated by LynSchwendy (talk) 03:28, 14 May 2024 (UTC)