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