Water Cycle & DBs & Systems Flashcards
What is water stored as?
Liquid, Solid & Gas
Is most of the water in the ocean saline or freshwater?
Saline
How much of the water is freshwater?
3%
How much of the freshwater is frozen?
69%
What does water must be for humans?
Economically and physically accessible
What is it called when water is cycled between different stores?
The global hydrological cycle
What system is the GHC?
Closed system
What varies overtime in stores?
Magnitude
What does the magnitude of water depend on?
The amount of water flowing between the stores
What is evaporation?
When liquid water changes state into a gas, becoming water vapour
What does evaporation increase?
The amount of water stored into the atmosphere
When does condensation occur?
When water vapour changes state to become a liquid
What do water droplets do?
Can stay in the atmosphere or flow to other subsystems
Describe one change that can cause water vapour to condense
Temperature - large or rapid drop
What 2 things are essential for the water cycle?
Cloud formation & Precipitation
How do clouds form?
When warm air cools down, causing the water vapour in it to condense into water droplets
What 3 things that cause warm air to cool leading to precipitation?
Other air masses
Topography
Convection
How does other air masses lead to precipitation?
Warm air is less dense than cool air.
When they meet, warm air is forced above the cool air.
Cools down as it rises.
How does topography lead to precipitation?
When warm air meets mountains.
Forced to rise, causing it to cool.
How does convection lead to precipitation?
When the sun heats up the ground. Moisture on ground evaporates & rises up
. As it gets higher, it cools.
When does cloud formation and precipitation happen?
It varies seasonally.
What 2 cyrospheric processes change the amount of water stored as ice in the cyrosphere?
Accumulation & Ablation
What does the balance of accumulation and ablation vary with?
Temperature
When do variations in cyrospheric processes happen?
Over different timescales