Cryosphere

Question 1

What are the locations of cryospheric water?

Answer 1

Sea ice 
Ice sheets 
Ice caps 
Alphonse glaciers 
Permafrost

Question 2

Sea ice formation

Answer 2

Water in ocean cools to temps below freezing.

Grows in winter/ shrinks summer.

Doesn’t raise sea level when melts because is formed from sea.

Closely linked to CC so scientists concerned with recent decline

Question 3

Sea ice example

Answer 3

Much of artic ocean is frozen

Question 4

Ice shelves

Answer 4

Platforms of ice that form where ice sheets/ glaciers move out into ocean.

Exist in Greenland

Question 5

Icebergs

Answer 5

Chunks of ice that break off glaciers / ice shelves and drift into ocean.

Raise sea level when first leave land and push into water - NOT when they melt.

Question 6

Ice sheet example

Answer 6

Greenland and Antarctica

Question 7

How big are ice sheets

Answer 7

Mass of glacial ice

More than 50,000 km2

Question 8

How much freshwater do ice sheets Antarctica and Greenland hold ?

Answer 8

99% of fresh water on earth

Question 9

How big is Antarctic ice sheet?

Answer 9

14 million km2

Roughly area of USA and mexico combined.

30 million km2 of ice

Question 10

Ice sheet formation?

Answer 10

Snow falls in winter does not melt entirely over summer.

1000s of years layer of snow build up into thick masses of ice.

Grow thicker / despise as more snow and ice compress older layers.

Constantly in motion slowly flowing downhill under own weight.

Question 11

How does an ice sheet remain stable ?

Answer 11

Accumulated same mass of snow as it loses to sea.

Question 12

How much would sea level rise by if Antarctic ice sheet melted ?

Answer 12

60m

Question 13

Ice caps

Answer 13

Smaller than 50,000 km2

Mountainous areas like Himalayas.

Dome shaped

Centred at highest point

Question 14

Furtwangler glacier

Answer 14

Kilimanjaro

60,000 km2

Africa’s only remaining ice cap

Question 15

Alphine glaciers

Answer 15

Thick masses of ice in deep valleys/ upland hollows.

Fed ice from ice caps and smaller glaciers

Question 16

Permafrost

Answer 16

Ground/ soil / rock that remains at it below 0 degrees for 2 consecutive years

Thickness varies up to 1,500 m

Most today were formed during cold glacial period - persisted on through warmer inter glacial periods - Holocene

Question 17

Subsea permafrost

Answer 17

0 degrees

Large areas of arctic continental shelf formed during last glacial period

Question 18

Permafrost and cc?

Answer 18

Melting

Releases huge amounts of co2 / methane