Scene #

Description

Narration

1

Gold fish swim by.

The title Earth Science week appears above water in the clouds.

A view of the ocean and beach through a rocky cave the title Water, Water, Everywhere! Appears.

The shoreline appears with waves splashing.

Moving over a coral reef with tiny fish swimming in and out.

A seagull is on the beach.

Water is flowing through a glacier.

Music Playing

Waves are crashing gently on a shore.

Water is all around us,

and its importance to nearly every natural process on Earth

cannot be underestimated.

It is the only compound that can be found naturally as a liquid, gas, and solid.

2

The earth is spinning and the colors of the water are changing as the narrator speaks.

An interactive diagram of the water cycle appears as it is described ending with the ocean waves hitting the shore.

The process by which water moves around the Earth, from the oceans to the atmosphere to the land and back to the ocean, is called the water cycle.

Water regulates climate, storing heat during the day and releasing it at night, and carries heat from the tropics to the poles by sea and by air. Let's follow a single molecule of water beginning in the ocean through the paths it might take before eventually winding up right where it started-- back in the big, blue sea.

3

The sun appears

A glove appears with the thermal energy colors showing on it.

The water cycle model is showing evaporation. Arrows rising out of the water to show the water turning into water vapor.

The globe is showing turquoise flashing where evaporation occurs.

The fuel for this journey will be provided by our planet's prime energy source-- the sun.

During the day, the sun heats up the air and ocean surface,

Evaporation occurs when a liquid molecule of water escapes into the air as a gas.

This scientific visualization shows how water evaporation-- indicated in turquoise-- is driven by the energy of the sun.

Notice how the rate of evaporation pulses over land. It speeds up in the day and almost disappears at night. Over the ocean, evaporation appears to remain constant both day and night. Water in the air in gas form is known as water vapor. The molecule is now fresh water, having left the ocean salt and other particles behind.

4

Paula Botempi, Program Manager at NASA is speaking at a table with an American flag behind her and pictures of earth in space behind her as well.

Clouds are moving over the ocean. A zoom in to the clouds and water molecules appear. Zooms back out to the clouds moving in the sky.

Paula Botempi, Program Manager at NASA is speaking at a table with an American flag behind her and pictures of earth in space behind her as well.

The water cycle model is shown.

The water evaporates and goes into the atmosphere, and then it doesn't necessarily just turn around and fall as rain or snow.

Condensation is the process by which water vapor molecules cool, stick together, and become liquid again in cloud formation. This often happens high in the atmosphere where the temperature is much lower than it is near the surface.

What happens in the atmosphere is, just like we have currents in the ocean, we have winds in the atmosphere that actually, to some extent, drive what goes on in the ocean currents.

Materials in the atmosphere can travel, actually, a great distance, sometimes a quarter of a way around the world, just until they get to the point where they actually turn into rain or snow and thereby fall back to the ocean or fall back to the land.

5

The globe is showing precipitation patterns and then shows a glacier. Then a mountain.

Matt Rodell, Nasa Hydrologist is speaking. Soil is shown that appears to have undergone a drought while he is talking.

This is called precipitation. If the water molecule falls on land as snow, it may be stored for a very long period of time in a polar ice sheet or mountain glacier, depending on climate conditions.

When rain falls or the snow melts, typically the next place it goes is it infiltrates into the soil. So the soil is not a solid. It's not like a rock. There are pore spaces in there, and those can be filled with water. And typically, there is a certain amount of water in the soil at all times. If the soil was completely dry, then plants wouldn't be able to grow.

6

A pathway with rain appears and then grass coming out of the ground.

Matt Rodell, Nasa Hydrologist is speaking. While he is speaking the water cycle model is pointing to the ground where surface water would go. The model then points to a stream and follows the flow to the ocean.

If soil becomes saturated, any additional rainfall will collect in puddles and streams. Soil water that percolates deep enough will help to recharge an aquifer.

An aquifer is any underground geologic formation that stores water. So it's typically either rock with a lot of cracks in it, or it's sandy layer. Sand has a lot of pore space in it, can store a lot of water.

The water molecule might remain in an aquifer for more than a million years. More likely, it would help to replenish a stream, which would feed into lakes and rivers. Eventually, the water molecule will return to where it started-- the ocean.

7

A dam appears, then crops, then grass with a sprinkler system running, and a city street, finally the California aqueduct.

Matt Rodell, Nasa Hydrologist is speaking. Three Gorges Dam in China appears. A sprinkler appears with the sign irrigation areas.

People also have a role in the water cycle. By pumping water out of the ground for irrigation, cutting down forests for development, and building roads and other concrete surfaces that lead to runoff, people can have a serious impact on the path a water molecule takes.

The most obvious way that people affect the water cycle are the ways that we control the water after it's fallen on the land surface as rain or melts as snow. But we have put in dams and rivers to hold this water. We also pump the groundwater out and use that. So these water resources, as we call them, are really us taking a natural part of the water cycle and using it for our benefit.

8

A climate map shows with different variations of warming appearing on the map.

Matt Rodell, Nasa Hydrologist is speaking. Images of an area effected by drought appear.

Ocean water is hitting cliffs as the narrator speaks. The globe appears. A coral reef and then a field appear with the final scene at the beach during sunset.

The water cycle also affects, and is affected, by climate variations.

The water cycle is one of the ways that we will really feel any changes in climate. So climate changes will feed back to water cycle changes-- things like how much precipitation an area receives, the frequency of droughts and floods, and this sort of thing.

The water cycle is the adventurous journey that water takes through the oceans, atmosphere, and land, driven by the sun. Improving our understanding of the water cycle and how it is changing will be critical for future decisions related to water management, agriculture, natural resources, and climate change.