Water and Carbon Cycle

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Is the water cycle an open or closed system?
A closed system. There is a fixed amount of water on earth
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What is a store in the water cycle?
Natural reservoirs of water such as the ocean, lakes and rivers
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What is an input in the water cycle?
A flow of water entering a store (rivers entering the ocean)
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What is an output in the water cycle?
Flows leaving stores (evaporation from the sea)
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What is a flow in the water cycle?
Movements between stores in a system
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3 Facts about Oceans
Covers 70% of the earth's surface, holds 97% of the worlds water, 1 million species live within it
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3 Facts about the atmosphere?
0.001%of water is carried in the air, 300 miles thick, has 4 layers (stratosphere, thermosphere, troposphere and mesosphere)
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2 facts about the cryosphere?
23% of the earths surface, largest ice sheets are in Greenland and Antarctica
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What is mass balance in water stores?
There is a fixed amount of water in Earth's atmosphere (1385 mil cubic km of water). Transfers occur and changes in the water store occur without effecting mass balance. Mass balance means the total amount of water is always conserved.
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What is the Cryosphere?
Areas of the Earth where water is present as snow or ice. (Iceland Ice cap, Greenland ice sheet, Alpine glaciers like Mer de Glace in France0`
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Name 8 water store changes over time...
Monsoon, Ice Accumulation, ablation,global warming, snowball earth, hothouse earth, milankovitch cycles
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Describe a monsoon water store change over time.
Occurs in Mangalore where 2/3 of the years rainfall falls in 3 months each year. Water stores from the atmosphere to the hydrosphere and the hydrosphere to the atmosphere are uneven.. Occue on account of meteorological processes.
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Describe ice accumulation water store changes over time...
Occurs in mountianous glaciated regions such as the Alps and the Andes. In steady state equilibrium (water stores do not fluctuate much in long term) Build up of snow and ice. From atmosphere to cryosphere.
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Example of ice accumulation
In 2016 in Val d'lsere the total snowfall was 640cm and the total snowfall days were 53.
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Describe ablation water store changes over time.
Occurs in mountainous glaciated regions such as Alps. Changes from fold ice to liquid vapour when temp rises above 0 degrees. Change from ice to vapour is called sublimation. From cryosphere to hydrosphere.
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Example of ablation
The greenland ice sheet is a body of ice covering 1.7mil sq km. Its the 2nd largest in the world after Antarctica, temporal changes occur in the summer months when the ice melts.
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What is el nino water store change over time
An interruption in the weather pattern due to the reversal of trade winds. It is a phenomenon in the Pacific Basin leading to excessive droughts and flooding. Trade winds die in western Pacific and eastern pacific ocean becomes 6-8 degrees warmer.
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Time period of El Nino
occurs every 3-7 years and lasts 18 months
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Examples of devastation caused by El Nino event
350 died and 250,000 homeless because of flooding, 1.1 million effected
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Global warming change in water stores over time
Observed change in average temperature rise. Increase the rate of melting adding 1mm per year to global average sea level. Global sea level has increased by 200mm since 1900. Areas will little rain will experiences less and vise versa.
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Snowball earth water store changes over time
Every 200 million years there is a major glacification. This is a glacial period. Earths surface became all covered in ice. Hydrosphere to the Cryosphere. Happened due to volcanic eruptions &low tropopause, sulfur dioxide blocked solar radiation
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Hothouse earth water store changes over time
Interglacial period. Conditions meant that the poles were completely free of ice caps. Cryosphere to the hydrosphere. 56 million years ago there was a surge of Carbon into the atmosphere which sent global temp soaring
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What are Milankovitch cycles
cause interglacial and glacial periods like hothouse and snowball earth
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Why do Milankovitch cycles occur?
Eccentricity, Tilt, precession
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What is a change in eccentricity? (when does it occur)
Change in the earths orbit around the sun, more circular to more elliptical, happens every 100,000 years and can lead to an ice age (hydrosphere to cryosphere)
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What is a change in tilt? (when does it occur)
happens every 41,000 years and varies between 22.5 degrees and 34.5 degrees. Results in a change of water store from hydrosphere to cryosphere.
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What is a change in precession (when does it occur)
Wobbling of the earth on its axis, every 23,000 years
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What is a confluence?
Where rivers join
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What is a watershed?
the edge of a river basin
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What is the source?
Start of a river
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What is a drainage basin?
An area of land drained by a river and its tributries
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What is a mouth?
Where a river flows into the sea
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What kind of system is a drainage basin?
An open system
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What inputs are there into a drainage basin?
Precipitation (rain/snow/sleet/fail/frost) High intensity rainfall between 50-100 mm per hours rare in the UK, and if it does occur it is likely to cause flash flooding.
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What is evaporation
Liquid water transformed into water vapour
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What is evapotranspiration
Combined processes of evaporation and transpiration (because it is hard to calculate separately)
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What is Groundwater flow?
Water moving through sedimentary rock (slowest transfer of water in the drainage basin) Groundwater is influenced by permeability, percolation and rain.
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What is inflitration?
water soaking into soil from the surface
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What is interception?
Raindrops are prevented directly reaching the soil due to vegetation
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What is percolation?
Downward movement of water within rock under the soil surface
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What is run off?
Water that enters a river and eventually flows out the drainage basin
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What is stemflow?
water runs down stems and branches before reaching the ground
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What is throughfall?
water drips off leaves during precipitation
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What is through flow?
Water moving downhill through soil
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What is channel flow?
Water moving downhill through rivers
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What is overland flow?
Movement of a sheet of water across the ground (50-500mm per hour)
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What is infiltration-excess overland flow?
When rainfall intensity is so great not all water can inflitrate, irrespective of how wet or dry the soil is prior to rainfall event. This can lead to flash flooding
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What is saturation excess overland flow?
Happens if rainfall continues for a long time, entire soil is saturated and throughflow is deflected closer and closer to the surface. In time the entire soil becomes saturated right up to the surface.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

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What is a store in the water cycle?

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Natural reservoirs of water such as the ocean, lakes and rivers

Card 3

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What is an input in the water cycle?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What is an output in the water cycle?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What is a flow in the water cycle?

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