Water: it is the driving force of our planet. It is what makes life on earth possible. Water is what makes so many other environmental and biological systems on our planet work. But to know how water moves our planet, we first need to know what the driving force behind the water is. Water has the ability to absorb and release large amounts of heat. This helps keep the Earth's surface thermostatic. This also helps regulate weather patterns. Heat currents travel from the equator to the poles and then back. This fuels land storms, wind and ocean currents. The latent heat of fusion in water is the highest of all common liquids and most solids. The latent heat of vaporization is the thermal energy of water vapor. Water is a polar molecule. A water molecule has one negative pole exposed on the oxygen atom and two positive poles exposed on the hydrogen atoms. The negative ends of the hydrogen atoms bond with the positive ends of the oxygen atom. Water molecules exist in a bent form. This allows water to be a universal solvent. Water can dissolve many common solids and liquids. Water has thermostatic properties that allow it to moderate temperature changes. The property of thermal inertia allows a substance, such as water, to resist change in temperature whether energy is gained or lost. The property of ice causes ice to provide a moderating thermostatic effect even if it does not become hot enough to melt. The water and air movement property describes how water and air currents prevent the equator from boiling. Salinity is the total concentration of dissolved inorganic solids in a body of water. Measures the total amount of salts present in the water. Salinity is measured by a salinometer; this is done by determining… the center of the paper… the pressure is 1 atm, equal to the atmosphere above it. Water pressure increases by this amount every 10 meters of depth. Now that we know a little more about the properties of seawater, we can better understand how it affects life in the ocean and life on land. We can also have a greater appreciation and understanding of how our weather systems and climate patterns work and what we can do to preserve them. Works Cited Class Notes; Marine science lesson; January 26, 2010- February 2, 2010. Oceanography textbook; Houghton Mifflin; New York, New York; February 2, 2010Mr. Clark; Marine science lesson; January 26, 2010- February 2, 2010.USGS: The water cycle; http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclysummary.html; February 21, 2010How it works: water pressure; http://geography.howstuffworks.com/oceans-and-seas/thegeographyofoceans2.htm; February 21, 2010