Water properties:
- Water is the only substance on Earth that naturally occurs as a solid, a liquid, and a gas.
- These changes of state require heat exchange which is important to the redistribution of heat energy in the atmosphere
- Water has a high specific heat, and so it can absorb large amounts of heat energy before it begins to get hot and releases energy slowly when situations cause it to cool.
- This helps moderate the Earth’s climate and helps organisms regulate their body temperature
- Water in a pure state has a neutral pH, so is neither acidic nor basic
- changes in pH occur when substances are dissolved
- rain is naturally acidic, with a pH of about 5.6, because it dissolved carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide.
- Water conducts heat more easily than any liquid except mercury.
- This causes large bodies of water to have a uniform vertical temperature
- Water is a universal solvent and is able to dissolve a large number of different chemical compounds.
- This feature also enables water to carry solvent nutrients in runoff, infiltration, groundwater flow and living organisms
- Water has a high surface tension and tends to form drops
- this allows water and dissolved nutrients to move through plants and blood via tiny vessels in the bodies of some animals