GY116 Water in the Environment

Glacier morphologies form a broad continuum, from the smallest niche glacier to the largest ice sheet. Apart from size, what is the main factor that differentiates ice sheets and ice caps from smaller glaciers?

Which of the following terms is used to describe the loss of snow and/or ice from a glacier?

Which of the following processes is the principal flow mechanism in cold polar glaciers?

What term is used to describe the process by which glaciers move over small obstacles on their bed by the melting of ice under pressure and its subsequent transport and refreezing where the pressure is lower?

Glacial abrasion is a glacial erosion process whereby rock particles held within the basal ice are dragged over the bedrock. Which of the following are products of this process?

What is the term used to describe an oval-shaped hill, largely composed of glacial drift, which forms beneath a glacier or ice sheet and is aligned in the direction of ice flow?

What is the term used to describe the instantaneous discharge of up to 50,000 m3 of water and debris from a glacier?

Ice cores from ice sheets can contain an abundance of information on the dynamics of ice mass balance, paleo-climate, and paleo-environmental conditions. Currently, what is the length of the longest ice core record on Earth?

Approximately what percentage of Earth’s freshwater is present in streams and rivers?

In which environments would a meandering river channel typically develop?

River channels can also differ in the channel bed morphology. What channel bed morphology typically develops in steep mountain streams and rivers?

Which of the following values is closest to the hydraulic radius of the theoretical river shown in Figure 1?

Figure 2: A device used for discharge measurement via the velocity-area method. For use in question 15. What is the name of the device shown in Figure 2?

The types of waves generated by wind blowing across the sea-surface are determined by which of the following?

For deep water waves, water depth is?

In wave analysis using linear or ‘Airy Wave Theory’, wave speed is calculated by which formula?

The common centre of mass around which the Earth/Moon system rotates is?

Which of the following are examples of ‘Eulerian’ techniques of tidal current measurement? 1. A moored current meter 2. A sub-surface float 3. A freely drifting ocean buoy 4. An Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler