Water

Question 1

How much of the hydrosphere is fresh water?

Answer 1

3%

Question 2

How many km3 of water vapour is found in the atmosphere?

Answer 2

12,900km3
Global average of 26kg/m2 of water for each column of air on the surface of the earth

Question 3

What % of atmospheric water makes up the % of all water

Answer 3

0.4%

Question 4

What state is the amounts of water in these stores at?

Answer 4

Dynamic equilibrium

Question 5

What is the average depth of ocean water?

Answer 5

3,682m

Question 6

How much of the planets surface does the ocean cover?

Answer 6

72%

Question 7

What % of the ocean has been explored?

Answer 7

5%

Question 8

Why is oceanic water salty?

Answer 8

It contains dissolved salts

Question 9

Why is it important that the ocean is salty?

Answer 9

The salts allow it to stay liquid below 0 degrees Celsius

Question 10

What is the average ph of oceanic water?

Answer 10

8.14
Alkaline

Question 11

What is cryospheric water?

Answer 11

-sea ice eg the Ross ice shelf
-permafrost eg the Alaska north slope
-alpine glaciers eg mer de glacé France
-ice sheets eg the Greenland ice sheet
-ice caps eg the Iceland ice cap

Question 12

What happens to sea ice during winter and summer?

Answer 12

Grows during winter and shrinks in summer

Question 13

Why is sea ice important?

Answer 13

-it is closely linked with the planets climate

Question 14

How does sea ice form and what happens when it melts?

Answer 14

-forms when the ocean is cooled to temperatures below freezing
-it does not raise the sea level when it melts as it forms from ocean water

Question 15

What are ice shelves?

Answer 15

Platforms of ice that form where ice sheets and glaciers move out into the ocean

Question 16

Where do ice shelves exist?

Answer 16

-Antarctica
-Greenland
-in the arctic near Canada and Alaska

Question 17

What are icebergs? How do they form?

Answer 17

-chunks of ice that break off of glaciers and ice shelves
-only raise sea level when they first leave land and push into the water but not when they melt in the water

Question 18

What are ice sheets?

Answer 18

-a mass of glacial land ice extending more than 50,000km2

Question 19

Where are the ice sheets?

Answer 19

-2 major ones that cover most of Greenland and Antarctica
-these 2 contain more than 99% of freshwater ice on earth

Question 20

How much of the total net transport of water towards the continents comes from the Atlantic Ocean?

Answer 20

Two thirds.

Question 21

Where does most of the continental water emanate from?how does it return back to the ocean?

Answer 21

The Atlantic
it is returned to the Atlantic by rivers