2427410
Description
Flashcards by Joanna Griffith, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by Joanna Griffith
over 9 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| Context hazard | a global threat due to environmental factors such as climate change |
| Geophysical hazard | hazard formed by tectonic/geological (e.g. earthquakes/volcanoes/tsunamis) and geomorphological processes |
| Hazard | A perceived natural event which has the potential to threaten both life and property |
| Hydro-meteorological hazard | A hazard formed by hydrological (water/floods) and atmospheric (storms/droughts) processes |
| Vulnerability | A high risk combined with a low capacity for an individual/community to cope |
| Disaster | A hazard becoming reality in an event that causes death, damage to property and the environment |
| Risk | the probability of a hazard event occurring and creating loss of lives and livelihoods |
| Albedo | how much solar radiation a surface reflects |
| Climate change | Any long-term trend of shift in climate (average weather over 30 years) detected by a sustained shift in the average value of a climatic element (eg. rainfall, drought and storminess) |
| Enhanced greenhouse effect | when levels of GHG in the atmosphere increase due to human activity |
| Fossil fuels | energy sources that are rich in carbon and release CO2 when burnt (coal, oil, gas) |
| Global warming | a recently measured rise in the average surface temperature of the planet |
| Greenhouse effect | the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere due to the trapping of heat that would otherwise be radiated back into space - it enables the survival of life on Earth |
| Tipping point | The point at which a system switches from one state to another |
| Feedback mechanism | where the output of a system amplifies (positive) or reduces (negative) further output (eg. the melting of Arctic permafrost releases trapped methane, which leads to further global warming - positive feedback) |
| Frequency | how often an event of a certain size (magnitude) occurs. For example, a flood of 1m height may occur, on average, every year on a particular river, while a 2m flood may only occur about every 10 years. The frequency is called the recurrence interval. |
| Magnitude | the size of the event (e.g. force of a gale on the Beaufort scale or size of an earthquake on the Richter Scale) |
| Asthenosphere | a semi-molten zone of rock underlying the Earth's crust |
| Conservative boundary | a boundary between tectonic plates where the movement of the plates is parallel to the plate margin and the plates slide past each other |
| Constructive boundary | a boundary between plates where the plates are diverging (moving apart) |
| Destructive boundary | a boundary between plates where the plates are converging (moving together) |
| Lithosphere | the crust of the earth, around 80-90 km thick |
| Magma | molten material that rises towards the earth’s surface when hotspots with the asthenosphere generate convection currents |
| Plates | rigid, less dense “slabs” of rock floating on the asthenosphere |
| Hotspot | a localised area of the earth’s crust with an unusually high temperature |
| Plume | an upwelling of abnormally hot rock within the earth’s mantle |
| Inter-tropical convergence zone | a zone of low atmospheric pressure near the equator, which migrates seasonally |
| Climate | the average conditions of precipitation (rainfall), temperature, pressure and wind over a 30 year period |
| Thermohaline circulation | a global system of surface and deep ocean currents, driven by differences in temperature (thermo) and salinity (haline) between areas of the ocean. Also called the ocean conveyor. |
| Little Ice Age | a cool period in Europe when many Alpine glaciers advanced (1400-1850) |
| Medieval Warm Period | an unusually warm period in the North Atlantic climate (800-1400) |
| Thermal expansion | an increased volume of the oceans as it heats up leading to sea level rise. Accounted for 60% sea level rise in the 20th century (1900s). |
| Climate forcing | any mechanism that alters the global energy balance and forces the climate to change in response |
| Habitat | the environment of plants and animals, in which they live, feed and reproduce |
| Permafrost | permanently frozen ground |
| Indigenous | native/endemic |
| Eustatic change | change in sea level due to change in the amount of water in the oceans |
| Isostatic change | movement of land in response to loss or gain of mass (e.g. melting ice sheets leads to uplift) |
| Adaptive capacity | the extent to which a system can cope with climate change. In human systems it depends on available human, physical, and financial resources. |
| Climate vulnerability | the degree to which a natural or human system lacks the ability to cope with climate change. Vulnerability is a result of the magnitude of the change, its speed of onset, the sensitivity of the system and its adaptive capacity. |
| Biofuels | Fuels such as ethanol, extracted from plants |
| Sustainable development | ’Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (Brundtland Report, 1987) |
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