PRELIM Flashcards
means the science of water. It is the science that deals with the occurrence, circuation and distribution of water of the earth and earth’s atmosphere.
Hydrology
describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the earth surface.
water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle
rives the water cycle, radiates solar energy on the oceans and land.
The sun
can sublimate directly into water vapor.
Ice and snow
water transpired from plants and evaporated from the soil.
Evapotranspiration
Rising air currents take the vapor up into the atmosphere where cooler temperatures cause it to ________ into clouds.
Condense
______________ move clouds around the globe, cloud particles collide, grow, and fall out of the sky as ____________
Air currents, Precipitation
Condensed water vapor that falls to the earth surface. Mostly occurs as rain but also includes snow, hail, fog drip. etc.
Precipitation
Variety of ways by which water moves across the land. As it flows, water may infiltrate into the ground, evaporate into the air, and become stored in lakes or reservoir, or be extracted for agricultural uses or other human uses.
Runoff
Flow of water from ground surface into the ground. Once infiltrated, water becomes soil moisture or groundwater.
Infiltration
Flow of water underground, it can return into the surface or seep into the ocean.
Subsurface flow
Transformation of water from liquid to gas, it moves from the ground or bodies of water into the overlying atmosphere.
Evaporation
is a very light, usually uniform, precipitation consisting of numerous minute droplets with diameters in excess of 0.1 mm but smaller than 0.5 mm.
Drizzle
precipitation consisting of water drops larger than 0.5 mm. It can be classified as light rain when the intensity is smaller than 2.5 mm/hr, moderate when it is between 2.5 and 7.5 mm/hr, and heavy when it exceeds 7.5 mm/hr.
Rain
precipitation in the form mainly of branched hexagonal or star-like ice crystals, resulting from direct reverse sublimation of the atmospheric water vapor; snow particles can reach the ground as single crystals, but more often than not they do so after agglomerating as snowflakes. These flakes tend to be larger at temperatures close to freezing.
Snow
(North American usage) is precipitation consisting of fairly transparent pellets or grains of ice, formed as a result of the passage of raindrops through a layer of colder air near the ground. In British usage the word sleet refers to precipitation consisting of melting snow or a mixture of snow and rain.
Sleet
is ice deposited by drizzle or rain on cold surfaces.
Glaze or Freezing rain
(also called granular snow or graupel) are a form of precipitation consisting of white, opaque, small grains with diameters between roughly 0.5 and 5 mm.
Snow pellets
consists of balls or irregular chunks of ice with diameters between 5 and 50 mm, or even larger. These lumps of ice can be transparent or they can consist of concentric layers of clear and opaque ice; such layered structure is the result of the alternating rising and falling movements during the hail formation. Hail usually falls during violent and prolonged convective storms under above-freezing temperature conditions near the ground; it can cause severe damage.
Hail
consists of moisture in the form of liquid drops on the ground surface and on the vegetation and other surface elements, as a result of direct condensation of atmospheric water vapor.
Dew