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How dose the sea make the rain? Is it the wind or the waves?
Question Date: 2011-03-05
Answer 1:

In order to understand the rain, lets talk about water and the different forms it can take. Scientists call these states of matter. As you know, water can be solid (ice), or liquid, or it can be a gas, called water vapor. The difference between these states is heat. As you know, if you leave a cup of water out for a few days, some of it will evaporate. It doesnt disappear,it just turns into water vapor. The hotter it is, the more evaporation you get.

The opposite of this is when water vapor cools off and turns back into liquid water. You can see this if you take a cold thing, like a glass of ice water, outside on a hot day. The water vapor in the air hits the cold surface and turns into liquid water. This is called condensation. The same thing happens when the water vapor in your breath hits the air on a cold day.

Rain is the same basic process. Water evaporates from the ocean, turning into water vapor. The air is cooler higher up, so the water vapor cools off and condenses on dust in the air, then falls as rain. If the air over the land is cooler than the water, this happens more often because the water vapor cools more, causing more of it to turn into liquid water. I dont think the waves add much water to the air, but thats an interesting thought. Wind is just air moving. One major thing that can make air move is heat. Warm air rises and cold air falls. So if you have areas that are different temperatures, the warmer air is moving up and the cooler air is filling in behind it, creating wind. When warm, wet air blows into a cooler area, what happens?

Thanks for asking,

Answer 2:

Well, when winds blow across a body ofrough sea water, in the bottom few tens of meters (few meters above the surface) tiny droplets of sea water get entrained and transported to the land (when winds blow the right way). The salinity of rainwater can be SLIGHTLY higher near the beach than farther inland although a lot depends on the mixing and dilution of rain water, not influenced by the sea. With waves breaking on the beach or hitting sea walls, tiny droplets can be thrown up and carried by winds as well.


Answer 3:

Water that gets up in the clouds and later rains down to the land originally came from the ocean. In order for these clouds to get over land, then, and not rain their water back into the sea, these clouds need to be blown over land by wind.

Waves on the ocean are also created by wind. Thus, if you see big waves, it means strong winds out over the sea, which may mean that a storm is coming in the next few days. On the other hand, the winds may make waves that come to you, but are blowing the storm somewhere else, so you don't know whether a storm is coming or not from the waves.



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