wouldn’t more water in oceans mean more water for evaporation that creates clouds, that would in turn reflect the sunlight to cool everything down? Then cycle starts over

Question

wouldn’t more water in oceans mean more water for evaporation that creates clouds, that would in turn reflect the sunlight to cool everything down? Then cycle starts over

In: Earth Science

Answer 1

Water evaporates at the surface of the ocean and as objects expand in 3D space they gain volume at a greater rate than they gain surface area.

Think about filling a glass with water. You may double the amount of water in the glass but the area of the exposed water surface doesn’t significantly change.

Another issue is that plants evaporate up to 99% of the water they absorb through their roots through the process of transpiration. An acre of corn for example will evaporate 3-4000 gallons of water every day. Replacing land area with ocean is a trade off with likely a *reduced* surface area for evaporation; there is a higher surface area of leaves per acre than an acre of ocean surface.