• Question: how dose water evaporate from sea

    Asked by nurhak to David, Eva, Kate, Nicholas, Rachel on 14 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Nicholas Pearce

      Nicholas Pearce answered on 14 Nov 2015:

      Hey,

      Water molecules on the surface of the sea are being given energy by the sun. Instead of heating the entire sea to boiling point to evapourate the water, the sun’s energy can be passed on to individual molecules of water. If a single molecule gets enough energy, it can break away from the rest of the liquid water in the sea, becoming a gas. Eventually a lot of water will evapourate like this, forming clouds.
      This is also how puddles evapourate.

    • Photo: David Nunan

      David Nunan answered on 16 Nov 2015:

      Hey,

      Evaporation is all about changing energies. The particles in the sea water are constantly moving around but the one’s at the surface of the sea receive energy from the sun. This heats them up and they start to move around even quicker. Eventually they will have enough energy to escape from the liquid and become a gas.
      They molecules will the rise high into the sky where they will cool down again and clump together to form clouds.

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