Science: Earth's Water

Question 1

What is a cycle?

Answer 1

A series of events or processes that repeat

Question 2

What is the water cycle?

Draw it and show dad.

Answer 2

Continuous movement of water on earth.

Question 3

What is evaporation?

Answer 3

The process of changing liquid water into water vapor (gas)

Question 4

What is condensation?

Answer 4

The process of changing water vapor (gas) into liquid water

Question 5

What is precipitation?

Answer 5

Water in the atmosphere that falls as rain, sleet, hail or snow

Question 6

What is a cycle?

Answer 6

A series of events or processes that repeats over and over.

Question 7

What is a glacier

Answer 7

A slow moving body of ice on land.

Question 8

What is aquifer?

Answer 8

Underground water supplies

Question 9

What is resevoirs?

Answer 9

Places to collect and store water

Question 10

What is distributed?

Answer 10

Spread out between different places

Question 11

What is circulation?

Answer 11

A swirling motion

Question 12

What are tides?

Answer 12

Rising and falling patterns in the ocean caused by gravity.

Question 13

What is salinity?

Answer 13

The amount of salt dissolved in water.

Question 14

What is primary?

Answer 14

The most important

Question 15

What is desalination?

Answer 15

The process of getting freshwater from salt water.

Question 16

True or false: Water vapor and steam are the same

Answer 16

False.

Water vapor is the same temperature as the air around it, while steam is created when water boils (so it is much hotter).

Question 17

What is the source of energy that makes the water cycle work?

Answer 17

The sun.

Question 18

True or sale: most water on earth is fresh water.

Answer 18

False.

Most water on earth is salt water (97.5%) while only a small amount is freshwater (2.5%).

Question 19

True or false: 72% of the earth’s surface is water.

Answer 19

True.

Question 20

True or false: most of earth’s freshwater can be found on the earth’s surface.

Answer 20

False.

Only 1.2% of freshwater is on the earth’s surface. Most of it is frozen in ice caps and glaciers (68.7%) and ground water (30.1%).

Question 21

Where is most of the earth’s surface fresh water found?

Answer 21

Ground ice and permafrost (69%).

Lakes (20.9%)

Soil moisture (3.8%).

Other sources include rivers, swamps and marshes, in the atmosphere, and in living things.

Question 22

True or false: much of the earth’s fresh water is easily accessible for us to use.

Answer 22

False.

Only 1% of the earth’s fresh water is easily accessible. They are primarily accessible in lakes and soil moisture.

Question 23

True or false: over 1 billion people on earth do not have access to clean water.

Answer 23

True.

Question 24

What is one solution for lack of access to clean water?

Answer 24

Build reservoirs to collect and store water.

Question 25

What human activities are making water shortages even worse?

Answer 25

Pollution and habitat destruction (for example, more than half of the world’s wetlands have disappeared because people took the water out to build homes and expand agriculture).

Question 26

Why are wetlands important?

Answer 26

They remove pollutants from water.

Question 27

True or false: all oceans on earth are connected.

Answer 27

True.

Question 28

Why does ocean temperature change depending on lattitude?

Answer 28

The sun warms oceans, so the angle of the earth’s axis in relation to the sun determines how spread out the sunlight is.

Polar ocean water is around -2C while it is 30C near the equator.

Question 29

Aside from latitude, what else affects the temperature of ocean water?

Answer 29

Ocean depth.

Deep ocean water gets less sunlight so it is colder.

Question 30

What moves ocean water?

Answer 30

Currents and tides.

Question 31

True or false: all ocean water have the same salinity.

Answer 31

False.

For example, the surface water of the Atlantic Ocean have higher salinity than the surface water of the Pacific ocean.

And where rivers empty into oceans, there is lower salinity because freshwater mixes with salt water.

Question 32

What processes in the water cycle connects oceans to all of earth’s water?

Answer 32

Evaporation: the sun warms surface water of oceans to create water vapor.

Condensation: water vapor rises and cools to form clouds.

Precipitation: water then falls back to earth as precipitation for replenish water in lakes and rivers, which eventually flow back to the ocean.

Question 33

How does melting ice affect the salinity of the ocean?

Answer 33

Since ice caps are freshwater, melting ice caps makes the ocean have lower salinity.

This impacts ocean currents by changing them or slowing them down, which impacts weather patterns.

Question 34

What are the 5 layers of ocean, starting from the surface?

Answer 34

Epipelagic
Mesopelagic
Bathypelagic
Abyssopelagic
Hadalpelagic

Question 35

What effects does the ocean have on the earth’s systems?

Answer 35

Oceans interact with the geosphere when they erode the coastline.

Oceans interact with the atmosphere by causing winds to blow in certain directions.

Oceans support living things in the biosphere. When living things in the ocean die, they decompose and become part of the geosphere.

Oceans also interact with the atmosphere when ocean water evaporates into the atmosphere, which is carried by wind to eventually become rain or snow that falls on land.

Question 36

Ice caps and glaciers are melting faster than they are re-freezing. What impacts does this have on the earth’s other systems?

Answer 36

Impact on geosphere: sea levels are rising, causing coastal flood and erosion.

Impact on biosphere: ice caps and glaciers reflect sunlight back into space, to keep the earth cool. Fewer of them means less sunlight is reflected back into space, which causes earth’s temperature to rise. This makes it more difficult for some plants and animals to survive.

Impact on atmosphere: loss of ice affects weather patterns, leading to more severe weather such as more severe winters and stronger storms.