Water Cycle Flashcards
What is an input ?
Where matter or energy is added to a system
What is an output
Where matter or energy leaves the system
What is a store
Where matter or energy builds up in the system
Wjat is a flow
Where energy or matter moves in the system
What are boundaries
Limits to the system
What are the inputs to the water cycle
Precipitation : any water that falls to the surface from the atmosphere including rain, hail and snow
What are the 3 types of rainfall
Conventional, Relief and Frontal
Conventional rain fall is …
Due to heat by sun, warm air rises, cools at higher altitudes and falls as rain
Relief rainfall is when …
Warm air is forced upwards by a barrier eg. Mountains cause it to condense at higher altitudes and fall as rain
What is frontal rainfall ?
When 2 bodies of different temps of air meet, warm rises over cool cause it’s less dense and lighter and then condenses at high altitudes and falls as rain
Outputs to the water cycle
Evapotranspiration and Stream flow
What is evapotranspiration
Mix of evaporation and transpiration.
Evaporation occurs when water is heated by the suns heat, tunes into a gas and rises into the atmosphere.
Transpiration is when plants release water they absorbed in roots by respiration and then evaporates due to suns heat
Streamflow is …
All water that enters the drainage basin leaves through atmosphere or streams that run into lakes, oceans or other rivers that drain the basin
What is infiltration
Water moving from above ground into the soil
Grass crops and trees create passages for water to flow through and increase the infiltration capacity
