The gift from the sea
Without the sea, there would be no life on the land.
Snow, piled up on mountaintops, melts and trickles down mountainsides to
become rivers. Rain and snow that fall to earth soak into the ground and
provide moisture that plants must have for life. Thus, without rain and
snow there would be no fresh water and no plants. Without fresh water to
drink and plants to eat, there would be no animals.
And most of the rain and snow that make life possible, come from the
sea.
The heat of the sun causes a great deal of the water on the surface of
the sea to evaporate, or become a gas. This gas—water vapor—rises
into the air and forms the clouds we see in the sky. Wind carries the
clouds over the land. When the clouds move into cooler air, the water
vapor turns back into droplets of water that fall as rain or snow.
Thus, a soft summer rain, or a fierce winter blizzard, actually begins
in the waters of the sea. And this rain and snow—the gift from the
sea—make life on land possible.
The sea also makes life more comfortable for many of the creatures that
live on land. For the sea controls the earth’s climate.
There is much more water than land, and the temperature of water changes
more slowly than that of land. So, the ocean helps keep the temperature
of the air fairly steady. If there were no sea, the air around most of
the earth would be very hot during the day, even in winter. And nights
would be freezing cold, even in summer.
