Water And Carbon Cycles In The Tundra

Question 1

How large an area does the arctic Tundra cover?

Answer 1

8 million squ km

Question 2

Name 3 countries/ areas that contain large areas of Tundra

Answer 2

Canada, Alaska Siberia in Northern Russia

Question 3

In how many months of the year are average temperatures below freezing?

Answer 3

8-9

Question 4

In winter, when the sun doesn’t come up how low can the temperatures get?

Answer 4

-40 degrees C

Question 5

What is the average annual precipitation?

Answer 5

50-350mm (low)

Question 6

How much carbon is contained in the Tundra permafrost?

Answer 6

1600GT

Question 7

How many times the amount of carbon in the biomass is the tundra soils?

Answer 7

5

Question 8

What is the net primary production in the tundra?

Answer 8

Less than 200g/m2/year

Question 9

How many tonnes of carbon does the boimass hold per hectare?

Answer 9

4-29

Question 10

Why is permeability in the tundra soils/rock low?

Answer 10

Permanently frozen ground (permafrost) doesn’t let water through and crystalline rock types found throughout the tundra

Question 11

How long has most of the carbon been locked up for in the permafrost?

Answer 11

500,000 years

Question 12

When and where was oil discovered in the north slope of Alaska?

Answer 12

Prudhoe Bay in 1968

Question 13

What proportion of the USA’s domestic oil production was being produced by the 1990s?

Answer 13

1/5

Question 14

How much methane is lost from melting permafrost on the north slope of Alaska per year?

Answer 14

24,000 to 114,000 tonnes

Question 15

Name 5 stategies to reduce the impact of development on the water and carbon cycles.

Answer 15

Insulated ice and gravel pads
Buildingand pipelines elevated on pipelines
Drilling laterally beyond the drilling platforms
Computers can now detect oil and gas without drilling
Refrigerated supports