Hydrosphere

The hydrosphere [ hydrosfɛ ː rə ] ( from Ancient Greek ὕδωρ, hydor = water and σφαίρα, sphaira = ball ) is one of the Erdsphären. It covers the whole of the earth's water.

Term

The term hydrosphere was coined by Austrian geologist Eduard Suess in 1875. Suess Many years after the hydrosphere by other authors has been further subdivided.

The Polish geophysicist Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski developed in 1923 the concept of the cryosphere. She was 1939 Chionosphäre beige represents, which went back to the Soviet glaciologists Stanislav Vikentyevich Kalesnik. Both of these terms was the solid aggregate state of the water, the water ice, has been outsourced to separate earthly sphere terms.

With the Aqua Sphere got 1938 as well as the liquid hydrogen own earthly sphere - term. The word was coined by teachers from Zanesville (Ohio ).

The gaseous state of water, water vapor, so far received no own earthly sphere designation demhingegen. The obvious notion of Vapo (r ) sphere is already in use with an otherwise term significance. Thus, the water vapor is made ​​primarily in atmospheric water and administered as a part of the atmosphere.

Later, the hydrosphere is again split in other ways. This time it was broken down by staging their waters. In the first group, the water came in and under the seas. In the second group, the waters went on and the mainlanders (which thus included the inland waters). The former was named as Ozeanosphäre (or Thalasso sphere ), the latter was designated Limnosphäre ( internal or hydrosphere ). The atmosphere - as the third place where the water is staying - was disregarded. The waters were not located there own earthly sphere - term. The offering is this concept of hydro- atmosphere ( Atmohydrosphäre ) is already being used with a derogatory term meaning.

Depth hydrosphere

The abode conditional trisection can be added is another term: The deep hydrosphere includes portions of the terrestrial water that are further below the surface. The term was, however, repeatedly characterized independently and is currently still being used with different connotations.

• Deep marine hydrosphere: The marine deep hydrosphere refers to the deep layers of the seas. The term is roughly synonymous with the middle and lower portions of the deep sea. It was the first time in 1946 influenced by the U.S. oil engineer Henry Emmett Gross, who introduced him to a single, but published several times, essay. Thereafter, the term was reinvented at least twice and is still in use.

• Lithic deep hydrosphere: The lithic deep hydrosphere includes water in water-bearing rock layers that are further below the surface of solid earth. The term goes back to the Soviet geologists LN Elanskij who first postulated in 1964 one such layer. The idea that layers of rock can contain large amounts of water, is even older and can be traced back at least to 1955. Since Elanskij aquifers within the solid geosphere are repeatedly referred to by this term. However, no consensus exists as to what depth from which water should belong to the lithic deep hydrosphere. It is possible to find four different views. As low lithic hydrosphere be addressed:

Content and scope

"The water is neither so uniform nor clearly limiting layer such as rock and air, and it takes in contrast to these three state forms a (ice, liquid water, water vapor). "

The hydrosphere shows a structure which differs significantly from that of other classical inanimate Erdsphären. Unlike namely atmosphere and lithosphere, the waters of the hydrosphere nowhere a uniform and globe for seamless shell shape. Even oceans and seas addition to take a mere 70.8 % of the earth's surface and be broken in many places of islands and continents bounded: Underwater planet Earth would be comparatively low in water.

The ground waters form a continuum. It connects and pervades in different states, in different amounts and in the course of a erdumfassenden water cycle numerous sections of the Earth: The hydrosphere affects many of the other Erdsphären. In tiniest amounts of water can already be seen in the atmospheric exosphere. It is there that always quickly passing legacy hydrous objects that fall from space to earth. Permanent water is found from the lower edge of the thermosphere down to the geosphärischen Mesophäre. Water penetrates not only in caves and rock pores, the solid geosphere, but is as crystal water to a part of the mineral structure of the rock itself water is also an important building material of all earthly life. Without water, life would be as it exists on earth, not at all possible.

After the aggregate states of water, the hydrosphere of the Earth can be divided into three cryosphere ( with Chionosphäre ), aqua sphere and terrestrial water vapor. Alternatively, the hydrosphere after the staging of the water to be divided into three Ozeanosphäre, Limnosphäre and atmospheric water. The proportion of the atmospheric water is not negligible. So can contain up to 500,000 tons of water a single cumulonimbus cloud five kilometers in diameter. And atmospheric flows can - as water vapor - transport the same amount of water as the Amazon or the seven and a half to fifteen times as much water as the Mississippi.

→ water ice

→ liquid water

→ steam

• Frozen waters in inland waters and seas ( sea ice )
• Frozen Bodenwässer1
• Ice, glacier ice and firn
• Ice shelf and icebergs
• Fixed Niederschlagsformen2
• Eiswolken3

• Liquid water in inland waters and seas
• Liquid soil water
• Liquid Niederschlagsformen4
• Wasserwolken5

• Atmospheric water vapor
• Water vapor in the soil air

1: even permanently in the permafrost. 2: Snow, hail, frost and others. 3: Completely or mostly of ice crystals existing clouds - Cirrus, Cirrocumulus, cirrostratus, cumulonimbus incus one. 4: rain, drizzle, dew, and others. 5: Fully or predominantly of cloud droplets existing clouds - altocumulus, altostratus, stratocumulus, stratus, nimbostratus, cumulus, cumulonimbus, as well as fog and water vapor.

→ waters of the seas

→ waters of the continents

→ air-water vapor content and cloud water

• Liquid waters of the seas (sea water)
• Frozen waters of the seas ( sea ice ) with ice shelves and icebergs
• Flüssige1 and feste2 precipitate forms in the oceans
• Liquid water and water ice in the sea floor

• Liquid water of inland waters
• Frozen waters of the inland waters, ice, glacier ice and firn
• Flüssige1 and feste2 forms of precipitation in the inland waters and ( delayed) in the terrestrial ground waters
• Liquid water and Wassereis3 as soil water
• Water vapor in the soil air

• Atmospheric water vapor
• Wasserwolken4 and Eiswolken5

The tabular included here holdings of the hydrosphere mention many of the better known forms of existence of water on the earth. Next to them, but there are other underground water resources. These additional water resources can not be put into both tables. Because they possess physical properties or are in areas that are not covered in the tables:

• Supercritical water: escape from some deep-sea hydrothermal sources supercritical water. Because of their residence are those waters naturally to Ozeanosphäre. On the other hand, they can not be classified even after their physical state. Because supercritical water combine liquid and gas in themselves characteristics of Aggegratzustände.
• Waters of sublithosphärischen hydrosphere: water located below the lithosphere. They are derived from water-containing minerals which are suducted from the surface into the interior of the planet. Due to the high pressures inside the earth the waters are pressed from the minerals. The sublithosphärische hydrosphere begins many kilometers below the deepest aquifers. It spans the entire asthenosphere and goes even deeper, at least down to the transition zone between the upper and lower mantle. The total amount of water in the hydrosphere sublithosphärischen can only be estimated. The estimates range from 0.3 times to 2 times to more than 2 times as much water as in all the oceans together.

1: Not factored are the immovable waters. These are waters that are present chemically bound in minerals. The total volume is estimated for the lithosphere on 250,000,000 km3. 2: Do not factored the waters are the sublithosphärischen hydrosphere. Estimates of the total volume vary between 401.4 million km3 and more than 2.676 billion km3. 3: In the global cycle of evaporation and precipitation, the atmosphere is run annually by 496 100 km3 of water. Consequently, the total atmospheric water 38.16 is mathematically completely replaced once a year - so once every 9.57 days.