Geography - The Water Cycle and Water Insecurity,Questions and Answers Graded A+

Geography - The Water Cycle and Water Insecurity,Questions and Answers Graded A+ What is a simple diagram of the hydrological cycle? - ANSWER-DIAGRAM IN FOLDER!!!!! How does the hydrological cycle respond to extreme weather? - ANSWER-- On 6th December 2015, Storm Desmond hit northern England. For a brief period, Malham Cove in North Yorkshire became Britain's highest waterfall. - The geology is permeable limestone, so surface water usually percolates through bedding planes and joints, runs along the impermeable bedrock beneath and eventually re-emerges as a stream. - However, the storm was so intense that surface soils and the limestone were saturated. The landscape could not absorb the excess water, causing a surface stream and a waterfall for the first time in living memory. - The short-lived waterfall in Malham, was one response to saturated hydrological conditions. - Cumbria is the wettest county in England with an annual rainfall of over 2000mm. Extreme weather events in recent years have caused severe flooding with subsequent disruption. - A simple system within a drainage basin store can be seen as a 'black box' store, where 'local' characteristics (e.g. geology, relief, water quantity, available energy) that affect the throughput of water are not always known. Where is the world's water? - ANSWER-- Oceans - 96.9%. - Icecaps - 1.9%. - Groundwater - 1.1%. - Rivers and lakes - 0.01%. - Soil moisture - 0.01%. - (Overall freshwater = 2.5%). - The amount of water available world-wide is finite. - NASA estimates that every drop of freshwater has been consumed at least once before, because water flows through a closed hydrological cycle. - Solar energy causes water to evaporate from both sea and land, which then returns as precipitation. - However, most freshwater is locked up as either ice or groundwater for anything from 1000 to 10,000 years. - The estimate storage time in a biome is 1 week, whilst in oceans it's 4,000 years. How is the global hydrological cycle a closed system? - ANSWER-- The total amount of water in the world does not change. - No inputs occur from outside and nothing is lost. - At a global scale the system is continuous, with outputs governing inputs because nothing is lost or gained. - Shifts in the world's climatic zones means that some stores are depleting, e.g. polar ice and mountain glaciers are melting without being replenished. - Evaporation is greatest in warm areas so ground surfaces dry out. Global air circulation takes the vapour to cooler areas where it condenses to form clouds and precipitation. What are the processes that drive the global hydrological cycle? - ANSWER-- Solar energy and gravitational potential energy.