WaterLovers: After the Aquifers...the Chimney

Hello Steemians!

Welcome in a new part of the ***WATERLOVERS*** initiative.

In the first episode, we have talked about the aquifers and what happens when it rains strongly.

What?

Imagine that you are on the top of a mountain. It starts to rain, ok? Well. The water goes down on the ground and forms several secondary courses that we see on the mountain only when it rains. In add, down, on the feet of the mountain, in the valley, people watch the secondary courses and more water than the normality in the normal course. Ok? Well.

You remain at the top of the mountain. It continues to rain and then it STOP to rain. The last water finishes to fall down. Now, there isn't the water that feeds the secondary course.

The hours go. 1, 2, 3 hours, a day. On the top of the mountain, there isn't the water that used to feeds the secondary course; so, the secondary courses shouldn't be there along the mountain. BUT THE PEOPLE IN THE VALLEY ARE SEEING THEM.

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Why? Because there are the AQUIFERS and I quickly explained what it happens in the LAST EPISODE. I will add an explaining picture also there. This is one of the mechanisms with which the water goes out from the overground.

There is another important mechanism permits it to go out, in this situation and in ordinary life. But one step a time.

It is a normal day. The sun irradiates the ground and the temperature of it tends to increase. The upper layer of the water undergoes evaporation, as you can see in the figure below.

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This process happens also in the aquifers and the water vapor starts to move.

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CHIMNEY EFFECT

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The thing that happens is being indicated as the Chimney Effect, properly because this is the functioning of a chimney. I represent it in the figure above. You have to imagine that you have a long duct in a vertical position. On the bottom, there is a heat source; the air above that, is being heated while the air on the top of the duct remains cold. So, heating, the air tends to decrease its density, moving to the upper part of the duct; instead, the colder air on the top tends to move to the lower part of the duct, creating a convective motion.

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What does all this have to do with the aquifers? In the aquifers, in the same way, the water evaporates due to the sun's heat accumulated in the ground. So, the water vapor in the lower part has a higher temperature than the air in the upper part; when the water vapor has a higher temperature, it tends to move towards the upper part of the aquifer and there it can deposit on the cold walls of the rocks. There, the vapor starts to condense and go into a liquid state; in this way, it will permeate through the rocks and exit outside the aquifer.

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At the same time, the vapor in the upper portion of the aquifer tends to move to the lower; the convective motion speeds up the whole process; so, it is simpler that a major quantity of water tends to condense in a liquid state.

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This process happens usually, but when it rains and the aquifer is full of water the process is more imposing and a major quantity of water tends to exit outside the aquifer.

That's all: this is the second mechanism with which we can explain why there is a large quantity of water that descent along the mountains even after it has stopped raining.

I will continue my series and in the next episode, I will try to explain one of the things I ask my self in the last times: but...the natural fountains?

Greetings from me, guys!

To the next!

I published this post combining science and photography. All the photos in this post were taken and post-processed entirely by me and therefore copyright-protected.