Water and Carbon Flashcards
What type of system is Earth?
- Earth is a closed system so matter cannot enter or leave.
What is the cryosphere?
- All parts of the Earth system where it is cold enough for water to freeze.
What is the lithosphere?
- Outermost part of the Earth including the crust and the upper parts of the mantle.
What is the biosphere?
- Part of the Earth’s system where living things are found.
What is the atmosphere?
- Layer of gas between the Earth’s surface and space held in place by gravity.
What percentage of Earth’s water is saline?
- 97%
What percentage of EEarth’s water is freshwater?
- 3%
Out of the 3% of freshwater, what percentage is frozen, groundwater, liquid freshwater, water vapour?
- 69% frozen
- 30% groundwater
- 0.3% liquid freshwater
- 0.04% water vapour
What is evaporation?
- Conversion of liquid into a gas
How does evaporation affect the hydropshere and atmosphere?
- Adds water vapour to the atmosphere whilst depleting the hydrosphere.
What main factor determines the rate of evaporation?
- The intensity of solar radiation
- High solar radiation - high evaporation
- Low solar radiation - low evaporation
What is condensation?
- Conversion of water vapour into liquid.
What conditions does condensation need?
- High when there is lots of water vapour in the air and temperature drops is rapid.
When do clouds form?
- Clouds form when warm air also cools down.
- When droplets are large enough, precipitation falls too.
How does warmer/colder climate affect the cryosphere?
- During colder periods, inputs into the cryosphere are greater than outputs
- Water is transferred to the cryosphere as now
- During warmer times, the cryosphere store is reduced as losses due to melting become larger.
- Annual temperature fluctuations mean that more snow falls in winter than summer.
What type of systems are drainage basins?
- Open, local hydrological cycles.
What are drainage basins?
- Areas around the river that recieve rainfall which flows into rivers
What is the main input?
- precipitation as water, snow, hail, sleet.
What are the stores (name as many as possible at least 5)
1) Interception causes water to land on vegetation or other structures like concrete and act as a temporary store.
2) Surface storage is the moisture of the soil.
3) Soil storage is the moisture of the soil
4) Porous rocks that hold water are called aquifers
5) Channel storage is the water held within a river or stream channel.
What are the main flows of the water cycle?
- Water soaking into the soil through infiltration.
- Overland flow is water flowing over the land across the surface because precipitation is higher than infiltration.
- Stemflow is water running down a plant stem or a tree trunk.
- Percolation is water moving through the soil
- Baseflow is groundwater flow that feeds into rivers through banks and beds.
- Channel flow is water flowing into the river itself.
What are water cycle outputs?
- Evaporation
- Transpiration
- River discharge
What is the difference between potential evapotranspiration and actual evapotranspiration?
- Potential is the predicted amount whilst actual is the actual amount.
- Potential is inaccurate because doesn’t take into consideration whether places have dense vegetation or sparse vegetation.
What is the water balance?
- The balance between inputs and outputs
Why is there water surplus during wetter periods?
- Precipitation exceeds evapotranspiration
- More surface runoff, more discharge so river levels rise.
