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💧 Water Cycle Simulation

Simulate the global water cycle: evaporation driven by the Clausius–Clapeyron relation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, infiltration and groundwater flow — with real mass conservation across five reservoirs.

Hydrology2DModerate60 FPS

About this simulation

The global water cycle moves the same, fixed quantity of water between five reservoirs — ocean, atmosphere, ice, groundwater and surface water — forever. This simulator tracks each reservoir as a real numerical stock and computes every flux between them from driving physics each frame, so the total never drifts.

🔬 What it shows

A 3D landscape — ocean, mountains with an ice cap, a forest, drifting clouds and an underground cross-section — where individual water-molecule particles are reassigned between reservoir arrays in exact proportion to the computed evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, infiltration and baseflow fluxes.

🎮 How to use

Raise Global Temperature to watch saturation vapour pressure — and evaporation — climb via the Clausius–Clapeyron relation. Slide Vegetation Cover to shift the runoff/infiltration balance and transpiration rate. Adjust Simulation Speed to compress or stretch the reservoirs' very different residence times.

💡 Did you know?

Each +1 °C of warming lets the atmosphere hold about 7% more moisture (Clausius–Clapeyron) — the same relation used to explain why a warmer climate produces heavier downpours even where average rainfall changes little.

Real-world residence times

Reservoir	Typical residence time
Atmosphere (water vapour)	≈ 9 days
Rivers / surface water	≈ 2–6 months
Shallow groundwater	years to decades
Ocean & deep groundwater	centuries to millennia
Glacial ice	millennia

⚙ Under the hood

Simulate the global water cycle — Clausius-Clapeyron-driven evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff and groundwater infiltration — with real mass conservation across five reservoirs.

water-cycleevaporationclausius-clapeyroncondensationprecipitationgroundwater

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install