Model answer - Impacts of Grindavik 2023-2024 eruption

Link each impact to it's explanation using because.

• Lava flows travelled towards the town of Grindavik because the lava had erupted out of the fissures.

• Three homes were burned because the lava flows reached them. 

• Lots of buildings in Grindavik, like the sports hall, are no longer safe because of cracks in the ground. Insurance companies have said that they need to be demolished.

• People were evacuated because of the risk of lava flows and unstable buildings. This meant that only 1 person died - a worker who fell into a collapsed fissure.

• Two of the main roads around Grindavik were blocked because lava flows covered them.

• A water pipe from the geothermal power plant was destroyed because lava destroyed it. This stopped hot water getting to 20,000 people and the main airport.

• Wildfires started because of the heat of the lava. They didn't spread very far. 

Model answer - Explain the formation of a tropical storm.

You can choose to use a diagram as part of this answer.

Tropical storms form over warm oceans which are 27 degrees Celsius down to a depth of 50m.

This fuels evaporation, where heat and moisture rise upwards from the surface of the water.

In areas with low wind shear, the rising air is not broken up and instead forms a large area of clouds.

The system of clouds and wind spins due to the rotation of the Earth, which is known as the Coriolis effect.

As they spin, the clouds develop an area in the centre called the eye. Here, the wind is low and the weather is calm. Around the eye is the eye wall - this is the place in the storm with the fastest wind speeds.

The tropical storm gains energy when it's over warm oceans but loses energy when it's over land as there's no longer lots of evaporation happening. This is called landfall.

In Hurricane Milton, which hit Florida in 2024, the storm formed in an unusual way. It formed over the Gulf of Mexico in water which was 31 degrees Celsius.