Homework - geography

Write definitions:
discharge
lag time
drainage basin
peak rainfall
peak discharge
 

The hydrological cycle

Keywords

Inputs

precipitation (opady) - water in any form that falls from the sky

Transfers

Surface runoff/overland flow (spływ powierzchniowy) - water is not absorbed by soil but flows on the surface

Throughfall - water falling through the leaves 
Stemflow - water flowing through the stems

Infiltration (przenikanie) - the movement of water into the soil

Throughflow - movement of water through the soil

Percolation - when water slowly leaches into the rock

Groundwater flow/base flow - the water that infiltrated flows through the rock

Storage

Surface storage - the water that is stored on the surface in a depression

Interception storage - when plants are storing water on their surface

Vegetation storage - water that is cumulated inside the plant. 

Soil storage - water kept by soil

Groundwater Storage - water stored in rocks  

Channel Storage - water stored in rivers 

Ocean - the biggest body of water, which is salty

Outputs

Evaporation (parowanie) - changing water into water vapor

Transpiration - evaporation of water from plants

Sublimation - water change from ice into gas

other important words:

capacity (zdolność) - amount of water that can move or be stored in a particular place 

permeable (przepuszczalność) - water can move through 

concrete - beton, cement

Eight global warning questions.

What is the definition of global warning?

Global warming is increase of average temperature in the world caused by an excessive amount of carbon dioxide that keeps reflecting rays in the atmosphere which makes the weather hotter. 

What do scientists believe are the effects of global warming?

Scientists believe that global warming will have many bad impacts on the environment. Basic changes that are going to happen will be big flooded areas caused by melting glaciers, such as in the Arctic regions. A lot of animals such as polar bears are going to suffer because of decreasing of the natural surface which used to be their home. Also people who live in the valleys or on the low-lying coast will have to resettle. 

In other parts of the world there is going to be problem with droughts. Hotter temperatures will cause drying of natural water containers and dying from thirst of people, animals and plants. 

Weather is also going to be more unpredictable and variable. A lot of natural disasters such as coastal flooding, hurricanes and twisters will occure.

Climatic zones are also going to change significantly with time.

What do scientists believe are the causes of global warming?
Causes of global warming are 'green-house' gazes such as CO2, CH2, NO2, SO2 mostly producted by factories and cars.

How could global warming affect more economically developed countries?

In MEDCs they have started to have lots of campaigns about rising temperatures affected by global warming and to counteract it. A lot of public transport were replaced by 'ecological' buses, trains, trams that are supposed to emit less carbon dioxide that is related to global changes. Governments are trying to show people how to live more ecologically by making TV campaigns included famous people etc.
Prices are going to rise and zone species are going to change.
Countries will also spend lts of money into defense from flooding instead of improving e.g industry or public health etc. 

How could global warming affect less economically developed countries?

LEDCs are less able to cope with changes. They will suffer more than MEDCs because of having less money to make any step towards this event. 

Poor countries that are mostly related with farming will also suffer a lot because of more costs of taking care of crops. They will also have less fertile land which will affect their lifestyle which is very difficult and will cause even more poverty.

Some people do not believe that global warning is happening. Wh do they think this?
Name some of the things individuals and organization can do to help prevent global warming.
is global warming only negative thing, or could it have some positive impacts.

Is Europe held together?

Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor has the future of Europe in her hands. Unfortunately she seems to have no vision for the EU even if she holds the key to resolve the euro zone's sovereign-debt crisis. German voters don't wont to let weak counties as Greece, Ireland or Portugal to the euro zone that is forming the Eu's economics policies to be greatly enlarged. But steal Germany is playing a crucial role of keeping Europe together. Can Angela make it? Maybe it will start to split apart soon.

Pain for polish society...

Government reform seems to be a pain for polish society. The government makes decisions that are not acceptable for most people living in Poland. Prices are constantly rising. Taxes and new fees are making us poorer and poorer. What is left is the polish sense of humor about bad times and a perspective that there will be a better tomorrow. Prices of medicine are also rising which will hit mostly poor demographics such as the elder generation. This group also faces problems such as decreasing retirement pensions, higher prices of food and more problems with public hospitals and clinics. By now Poland is one of the countries with the worst healthcare and the most ill seniors in the European Union. There is no hope for an improvement soon. The government is making some aspects even worst. Does it not care about its reputation?

Are errors made by human genetically built into our kind?

I've seen one of the TED talks and I found it very interesting.

A woman was talking about the human as a creature that is naturally forced to make mistakes even though it is amazingly intelligent, the smartest of all animals. She and her student group performed tests on both capuchin monkeys and the studio audience because of the fact that we have common ancestors. They wanted to check if the origin of our errors is genetically built into our kind or if it's a result of complicated environment we've created. The results of the test were surprising. Both we and monkeys make the same mistake when trying to choose the better of two options. This shows that the origin is genetic and we, as members of the human species, have to deal with this disorder. On a positive note, despite many inabilities such as lack of wings or fins we are still clever enough to invent some appliances that can help us deal with this kind of thing. Luckily we learn from our mistakes.

link to the blog where you can find this speech:

http://efeconomics.blogspot.com/2011/03/ted-talks-homework-k.html

The Japan's fallout

Even if the tragedy happened in Japan it is having an effect on the world. The government estimates that they have lost about $100 billion which is relatively a lot but it is still hopefully not enough to wreck as rich country as Japan. Japan is being pushed into recession and because it is the third-biggest economy in the world there is no way that the impact will not be felt all over the world.

Some of the Asian countries are already having a problem with disruptions to electricity supply. Nuclear power, which gives one third of states' electricity, is still totally down. As soon as many Japan's neighbors were relying on this country there is going to be a big problem. Also after this disaster USA, Germany and China started to have second thoughts about building new reactors or extending plants. In these three countries there are debates about nuclear power because it is a very good but also risky way to produce  energy. They are hesitating about safety of these constructions.

After the Tsunami there was a lot of damage caused by fires, explosions even dangerous releases of radiation, which in worst scenario might have an impact on public health of Japan and countries nearby. 

So as we can see we can state that nuclear crises affect lots of countries.