EAS Final Exam

• hydrologic cycle

  Evaporation: liquid water becoming vapor

  Sublimation: snow or ice becomes vapor.

  Condensation: water vapor becomes liquid (dew, fog, and clouds.)

  Precipitation: water falling from the atmosphere to the surface in the form of rain, snow, hail, or sleet.

  Infiltration and percolation: water permeating from the surface into the soil, and then down through the layers of soil eventually into aquifers.

  Interception: interruption of this flow of water by plants, by furrows, or because it piles up as snow.

  Runoff: is the overland flow of rainwater or snowmelt water into streams.
• fresh water on earth

  Less than 4% of Earth's 332.5 million cubic miles of water is freshwater. About 1% of that is in surface bodies like lakes and streams, about 30% is in the ground, and the biggest portion - about 69% - is frozen in the ice caps and glaciers.
• Residence time lengths

  ocean 4000 years

  ice caps 800 years

  underground over 1,400 years

  lakes 17 years

  wetlands 5 years

  soil moisture 1 year

  atmosphere about 11-16 days

  rivers a few weeks
• Energy for condensation

  When water vapor condenses into a liquid state, the same large amount of heat (600 calories of energy per gram) that was needed to make it a vapor is released to the environment.
• Water table location

  Below a certain depth, the ground, if it is permeable enough to hold water, is saturated with water. The upper surface of this zone of saturation is called the water table. The saturated zone beneath the water table is called an aquifer, and aquifers are huge storehouses of water.
• Layers related to groundwater

  Unsaturated zone (vadose zone)

  Water Table

  Saturated Zone (phreatic zone)
• Glacier types

  Alpine and continental ice sheets
• Levees


  An enlarged bank built up on each side of a river
• Parts of a stream

  Headlands- where the stream starts

  Midlands- where floodplain begins to develop

  Mouth- stream arrives at base-level, deposits sediment
• Rectangular drainage pattern

  A drainage pattern characterized by numerous right angle bends that develops on jointed or fractured bedrock. Common in gently sloped areas of orthogonally jointed rocks.
• Stream aggradation

  The deposition of sediment. Aggradation occurs in areas in which the supply of sediment is greater than the amount of material that the system is able to transport.
• Depressions created by glaciers

  Cirques are bowl-shaped, amphitheater-like depressions that glaciers carve into mountains and valley sidewalls at high elevations.

  
  

  Kettles form when a block of stagnant ice (a serac) detaches from the glacier. Eventually, it becomes wholly or partially buried in sediment and slowly melts, leaving behind a pit. In many cases, water begins fills the depression and forms a pond or lake—a kettle.
• Glacier's balance

  The mass balance of a glacier is the net change in its mass over a balance year or fixed year. If accumulation exceeds ablation for a given year, the mass balance is positive; if the reverse is true, the mass balance is negative.
• Safety in debris flow/mudflow

  Debris and mud flows are a combination of fast moving water and a great volume of sediment and debris that surges down slope with tremendous force. The consistency is like that of pancake batter. They are similar to flash floods and can occur suddenly without time for adequate warning.
• Four layers of atmosphere

  Troposhere, Stratosphere, Mesopshere, and Thermosphere
• Effect of increased altitude on air

  Thinner and cooler
• Sun's energy reaching Earth

  insolation
• Air rising in lower atmosphere

  A thermal column (or thermal) is a column of rising air in the lower altitudes of Earth's atmosphere, a form of atmospheric updraft. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of Earth's surface from solar radiation, and are an example of convection, specifically atmospheric convection.
• Circulation around an anticyclone

  An anticyclone (that is, opposite to a cyclone) is a weather phenomenon defined as a large-scale circulation of winds around a central region of high atmospheric pressure, clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.[1] Effects of surface-based anticyclones include clearing skies as well as cooler, drier air.
• High atmospheric pressure locations

  High pressure forms at the horse latitudes, or torrid zone, between the latitudes of 20 and 40 degrees from the equator, as a result of air that has been uplifted at the equator. As the hot air rises it cools, losing moisture; it is then transported poleward where it descends, creating the high-pressure area. This is part of the Hadley cell circulation and is known as the subtropical ridge or subtropical high, and is strongest in the summer.
• Temperature changes in layers of atmosphere

  Troposphere: Temperature decreases with increasing latitude.

  Stratosphere: Temperature increases with latitude due to ozone layer.

  Mesosphere: Temperature decreases with latitude.

  Thermosphere: Temperature increases- oxygen and nitrogen absorb short wave, high-energy solar radiation. (hottest layer)
• Creation of arid conditions

  Less rain than evaporation
• Ozone

  A form of oxygen that has three oxygen atoms in each molecule instead of the usual two.
• Greenhouse gases

  Gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and ozone in the atmosphere which are involved in the greenhouse effect.
• Earth's orbit

  Because of axial tilt (obliquity) the maximal intensity of Sun rays hits the Earth 23.4 degrees north of equator at the June Solstice (at the Tropic of Cancer), and 23.4 degrees south of equator at the December Solstice (at the Tropic of Capricorn). In modern times, Earth's perihelion occurs around January 3, and the aphelion around July 4 (for other eras, see eccentricity). The changing Earth-Sun distance results in an increase of about 6.9% in total solar energy reaching the Earth at perihelion relative to aphelion.
• Sun's energy production

  The sun generates energyf rom a process called nuclear fusion. During nuclear fusion, the high pressure and temperature in the sun's core cause nuclei to separate from their electrons. Hydrogen nuclei fuse to form one helium atom.
• Sea level rise

  one result of global climate change, due to melting glaciers and ice caps
• Worldwide oil production

  increasing. Currently ~95,000 barrels per day.