Sherry Updegraff, age 11, of Montoursville, Pennsylvania, for her question:

Goes the sun really drab up water?

This is true, but what happens is not quite what it sounds like. The sun does not haul buckets of liquid water up from the seas into the clouds. But every year its warmth does evaporate an estimated 80,100 cubic miles of moisture from the oceans by changing the liquid water into gaseous water vapor, which is invisible. The separate molecules of vapor mingle with the gases of the air.

On a global scale, the sun evaporates 95, OOO.cubic miles of moisture from land and sea every year. This vapor in the air forms clouds, and weather conditions change it back to raindrops and snowflakes. During the year, 95,000 cubic miles of moisture fall back to the earth. This evaporation and dumping system is called the water cycle. It is kept going by the sun, the spinning earth and the weathery atmosphere.