17. Water is recycled too!

17. Water is recycled too!

The molecules used by living organisms were dissolved in the first seas; in shallow seas, molecules could be concentrated enough to react together; water acted as a protective shield against the Sun

Why did life first evolve in water?

16.5 degrees celsius

Average temperature over the Earth’s surface:

recycled

All elements that make up living organisms must be…

Only a tiny proportion of water passes through living organisms, and the sun plays the most important part in the water cycle

How is the water cycle different from the carbon and nitrogen cycle?

It evaporates water and causes temperature gradients that lead to winds

How does the sun play a big role in the water cycle?

Cells or bodies with a high water content resist heating up or cooling down even when there are changes in environmental temperature

Advantages of a high specific heat capacity of water:

Loss of heat

Advantage of evaporation:

High

Latent heat of vaporization of water:

Support

Advantage of incompressibility of water:

high heat capacity, evaporation, incompressibility, lubrication, biological reagent, transport medium

Important properties of water:

Biological reagent

A coenzyme that combines with the enzyme and substrate to form an enzyme substrate complex that converts the substrate to products

Photosynthesis and digestion

In what processes is water a biological reagent?

Oxygen, glucose, amino acids, sodium ions, urea

What does water transport?

Precipitation

The process of water droplets collecting and falling as snow, rain, or hail

Condensation

vapor to water

Evapotranspiration

liquid to vapor to occurs from the land surface

Evaporation

liquid to vapor

Melting

solid to liquid