Sentences with phrase «draining other continents»

One big reason the sea level dropped for so long: Only 6 % of the rainfall in Australia runs directly back to the sea, and the rest runs inland to lowlands (image depicts a normally dry area in eastern Australia flooded by rains in late November 2011) where it either soaks into the ground or evaporates back into the atmosphere — a process that returns moisture to the sea far more slowly than the rivers draining other continents do.