Oceans

Water is evaporated from the oceans and the land and returned as rain or snow, forming the hydrologic cycle.

海水和陆地上的水蒸发后，又以雨或雪的形式返回地球，形成水循环。

"The water cycle sounds like it is describing how water moves above, on, and through the Earth ... and it does. But, in fact, much more water is "in storage" for long periods of time than is actually moving through the cycle. The storehouses for the vast majority of all water on Earth are the oceans. It is estimated that of the 332,500,000 cubic miles (mi3) (1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers (km3)) of the world's water supply, about 321,000,000 mi3 (1,338,000,000 km3) is stored in oceans. That is about 96.5 percent. It is also estimated that the oceans supply about 90 percent of the evaporated water that goes into the water cycle."(USGS)

水循环听起来像是在描述水如何在地球上方、表面和内部移动……确实如此。但事实上，有很大一部分水在很长一段时间内储存在“存储空间”中，而实际上通过循环移动的水量却较少。地球上大部分水的存储地是海洋。估计全球水资源总量为332500000立方英里（mi³）（1386000000立方公里（km³）），其中约321000000 mi³（1338000000 km³）储存在海洋中，约占96.5%。此外，估计海洋提供了水循环中约90%的蒸发水量。