Eduqas A-Level Geography Water and Carbon Cycles (Component 2, Section A) overview quiz quiz

About 50%

About 70%

About 97%

About 10%

The atmosphere, where water vapour is stored as cloud

Rivers and channel flow draining the land surface

Soil moisture held in the unsaturated zone near the surface

Deep groundwater (fossil aquifers) and ice sheets

Where water exists but people lack the infrastructure or wealth to access and use it

A genuine physical shortage of water in the natural environment of a region

A situation where almost all of a region's water is held only in the oceans

Water scarcity that is caused only by climate change and steadily rising global temperatures

The basin neither gains nor loses any water across its boundaries, while the global cycle constantly exchanges water with outer space and the atmosphere above

The basin receives precipitation and loses evapotranspiration and discharge across its boundaries, whereas the global cycle has a fixed total

They are in fact both open systems, each freely exchanging water and energy with their wider surroundings across the system boundary at all times

The global cycle steadily gains new water from comets and space dust, whereas the drainage basin remains a closed system with a fixed total of water

Precipitation

Evapotranspiration

Runoff

Storage

Lag time lengthens and peak discharge falls, giving a more subdued hydrograph

The storm hydrograph disappears entirely once the basin has been urbanised

Discharge becomes completely constant throughout the year regardless of rainfall

Lag time shortens and peak discharge rises (a flashier hydrograph)

The lithosphere

The atmosphere

The biosphere

The surface ocean

The fast cycle moves carbon through the lithosphere over millions of years, whereas the slow cycle exchanges carbon between the atmosphere, biosphere and surface ocean over only years to decades

The fast cycle moves carbon between atmosphere, biosphere and surface ocean over years to decades; the slow cycle moves it through the lithosphere over millions of years

They are identical in every respect, moving exactly the same amount of carbon through exactly the same stores over exactly the same timescales every year

The slow cycle does not involve rocks at all, working instead only through living plants, soils and the surface waters of the ocean over very long timescales

By blocking incoming shortwave solar radiation before it can reach the surface

By cooling the upper atmosphere so that more heat is trapped down below

By absorbing and re-emitting outgoing longwave (infrared) radiation

By reflecting all incoming and outgoing radiation straight back out to space

Increased low cloud cover that reflects more incoming sunlight back to space

Faster plant growth in a warmer world removing more and more carbon dioxide from the air

Reduced evaporation in a warmer world lowering atmospheric water vapour levels

The ice-albedo feedback, where melting ice exposes darker surfaces that absorb more heat

Mitigation reduces the cause (emissions and protecting sinks); adaptation manages the unavoidable consequences

Mitigation manages the unavoidable impacts of warming, whereas adaptation reduces emissions and protects the carbon sinks

They are exactly the same thing, with both reducing emissions and managing the unavoidable consequences in identical ways

Adaptation applies only to the oceans, while mitigation applies only to processes happening on the land surface

They share no components at all and never interact with one another in any way

Through vegetation, oceans and the atmosphere, so a change in one cycle propagates to the other

Only through rainfall, with no other link between the two cycles existing at all

They operate completely independently of one another, with neither cycle ever affecting the other at all