Hydrosphere

The nutrient cycles may be accelerated, leading to nutrient enrichment of surface waters. This, in turn, can profoundly affect the chemical and biological characteristics of bodies of water. 

Although water is not destroyed on Earth, the hydrosphere can certainly suffer damage by human activities as discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. One of the main human activities detrimental to the hydrosphere is excessive utilization of water in regions deficient in rainfall. Withdrawal of irrigation water from rivers in arid regions has reduced some once-mighty rivers to trickles by the time they reach the ocean. The water is not destroyed, but it evaporates and in some cases infiltrates the soil. 

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The most striking feature of the earth, and one lacking from the neighboring planets, is the extensive hydrosphere. Water is the solvent and transport medium, participant, and catalyst in nearly all chemical reactions occurring in the environment. It is a necessary condition for life and represents a necessary resource for humans. It is an extraordinarily complex substance. Stmctural models of Hquid water depend on concepts of the electronic stmcture of the water molecule and the stmcture of ice. Hydrogen bonding between H2O molecules has an effect on almost every physical property of Hquid water. 

The chemistry of the mineral—water iaterface and of aquatic environmental particles and coUoids is reviewed ia References 25 and 26. References 16 and 27 review the role of the hydrosphere ia the biogeochemistry of global change. 

Because of a wide use of nonionogenic surfactants (NIS) in many areas of production, medicine and in a life, they have become known hydrosphere pollutants. As a result there is a necessity of the control over their contents in natural waters. Now there exist a sufficient number of methods of NIS determination with different detection limits. As a rule, a preliminary concentration is used for surfactants various classes detection limits decrease. 

As a possible method of concentrating trace amounts of bioactive organic compounds occurring in the hydrosphere, adsorption properties of various compounds have been explored by employing hydrous metal oxides as the adsorbents. To date, a family of organophosphoms compounds and carbonic acids were adsorbed onto hydrous iron oxide, along with the adsoi ption of monosaccharides onto hydrous zirconium oxide. 

Oxygen is the most abundant element on the earth s surface it occurs both as the free element and combined in innumerable compounds, and comprises 23% of the atmosphere by weight, 46% of the lithosphere and more than 85% of the hydrosphere ( 85.8% of the oceans and 88.81% of pure water). It is also, perhaps paradoxically, by far the most abundant element on the surface of the moon where, on average, 3 out of every 5 atoms are oxygen (44.6% by weight). 

About 80% of the earth s surface is covered with aqueous solution. This liquid layer, the oceans, is called the hydrosphere. The average depth of the hydrosphere is about three miles but at ocean deeps or trenches, it changes precipitously to depths over twice that. 

The composition of the earth s atmosphere differs from day to day, from altitude to altitude, and from place to place. The largest variation is in the concentration of water vapor. Water evaporates continually from the hydrosphere, from the soil, from leaves, from clothes drying, etc. At intervals, parts of the atmosphere become chilled until the dew point or frost point is reached and then any vapor in excess of the saturation amount is precipitated as rain or snow. 

Hydronium ion, 187 concentration calculation, 192 concentration and pH, 190 model, 186 Hydroquinone, 345 Hydrosphere, 437 composition, 439 Hydroxide ion, 106, 180 Hydroxides of lhird row, 371 Hydroxylamine, 251 Hydroxyl group, 329 Hypobromiie ion, 422 Hypochlorite ion, 361 Hypochlorous acid, structure, 359 Hypophosphorous acid, 372 Hypothesis, Avogadro s, 25, 52... 

All living organisms require at least one mobile phase (gas or liquid) in order to exist. Life on Earth as we know it would be impossible without the involvement of the liquid phase of water. The gas phase is necessary for life forms that consume gaseous substances or that produce gaseous waste products. Hence, the very functioning of the biosphere implicitly depends on the existence of the mobile atmosphere and hydrosphere, both of which are in... 

Rubey, W. W. (1955). Development of the hydrosphere and atmosphere, with special reference to probable composition of the early atmosphere. In "Crust of the Earth" (A. Poldenvaart, ed.), pp. 631-650. Geological Society of America, New York. 

Just as in the case for the hydrosphere, the atmosphere participates in all of the major biogeochemical cycles (except for phosphorus). In turn, the chemical composition of the atmosphere dictates its physical and optical properties, the latter being of great importance for the heat balance of Earth and its climate. Both major constituents (O2, H2O) and minor ones (CO2, sulfur, nitrogen, and other carbon compounds) are involved in mediating the amounts and characteristics of both incoming solar and outgoing infrared radiation. 

While the hydrosphere has long been appreciated as essential to life on Earth, only in the past couple of decades have scientists expanded their exploration of the global hydrologic cycle and its roles across the spectrum of Earth science... 

Although it is one of the smallest reservoirs in terms of water storage, the atmosphere is probably the second most important reservoir in the hydrosphere (after the oceans). The atmosphere has direct connections with all other reservoirs and the largest overall volume of fluxes. Water is present in the atmosphere in solid, liquid, and vapor forms, all of which are important components of the Earth s natural greenhouse effect. Cycling of water within the atmosphere, both physically (e.g. cloud formation) and chemically, is also integral to other biogeochemical cycles and climate. Consult Chapter 17 for more details. 

Many hydrologic reservoirs can be further subdivided into smaller reservoirs, each with a characteristic turnover time. For example, water resides in the Pacific Ocean longer than in the Atlantic, and the oceans surface waters cycle much more quickly than the deep ocean. Similarly, groundwater near the surface is much more active than deep reservoirs, which may cycle over thousands or millions of years, and water frozen in the soil as permafrost. Typical range in turnover times for hydrospheric reservoirs on a hillslope scale (10-10 m) are shown in Table 6-4 (estimates from Falkenmark and Chapman, 1989). Depths are estimated as typical volume averaged over the watershed area. 

In addition to biogeochemical cycles (discussed in Section 6.5), the hydrosphere is a major component of many physical cycles, with climate among the most prominent. Water affects the solar radiation budget through albedo (primarily clouds and ice/snow), the terrestrial radiation budget as a strong absorber of terrestrial emissions, and global temperature distribution as the primary transporter of heat in the ocean and atmosphere. 

Five components of the hydrosphere play major roles in climate feedbacks - atmospheric moisture, clouds, snow and ice, land surface, and oceans. Changes to the hydrologic cycle, among other things, as a result of altered climate conditions are then referred to as responses. Interactions with climate can best be explored by examirung potential response to a climate perturbation, in this case, predicted global warming. 

In its assessment of climate change, the IPCC (1990) identified five hydrosphere-related feedback mechanisms in the climate system likely to be activated by increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. These feedbacks are briefly described below for more detailed discussion of the climate system, refer to Chapter 17. 

Though the hydrosphere continues to operate in response to the same forces it always has, humans have had an unmistakable role in altering some of its balances. In general, these impacts have had relatively little effect on the overall global water balance, and there is little chance that direct manipulation of the hydrosphere will alter water storage and cycling on a global basis. 

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