The Warming Planet: Understanding Climate Change

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Climate

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the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

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Climate Change

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long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns

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Equator

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an imaginary line drawn around the earth equally distant from both poles, dividing the earth into northern and southern hemispheres and constituting the parallel of latitude 0°.

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Latitude

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the angular distance of a place north or south of the earth's equator,

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Longitude

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the angular distance of a place east or west of the meridian at Greenwich, England

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Mid-latitudes

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a spatial region on Earth located between the Tropic of Cancer to the Arctic Circle, and Tropic of Capricorn to the Antarctic Circle.

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Opinion Leader

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leadership by an active media user who interprets the meaning of media messages or content for lower-end media users

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Polar Region

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Area around the North Pole or the South Pole.

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Prime Meridian

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the earth's zero of longitude, which by convention passes through Greenwich, England

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Tropics

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the region between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn

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Weather

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the state of the atmosphere at a place and time as regards heat, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc

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Eocene Climatic Optimum

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an episode of global warming characterised by the warmest sustained temperatures of the Cenozoic

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Glacial Episode

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an interval of time within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances.

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Ice age

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a glacial episode during a past geological period.

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Ice Core

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a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet or a high mountain glacier.

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Little Ice Age

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a period of colder climate and increased glaciation occurring between warmer periods, in particular one such period which reached its peak during the 17th century.

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Medieval Warm Period

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brief climatic interval that is hypothesized to have occurred from approximately 900 ce to 1200 ce in which relatively warm conditions are said to have prevailed

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Paleoproxy

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Anything (such as a fossil or a tree ring) from which paleographic data may be obtained indirectly.

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Snowball Earth

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an explanation first proposed by American geobiologist J.L. Kirschvink suggesting that Earth's oceans and land surfaces were covered by ice from the poles to the Equator during at least two extreme cooling events between 2.4 billion and 580 million years ago.

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Temperature anomalies

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the departure, positive or negative, of a temperature from a base temperature that is normally chosen as an average of temperatures over a certain reference period, often called a base period.

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Blackbody

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an idealized physical body that absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation, regardless of frequency or angle of incidence.

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Electromagnetic radiation

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a kind of radiation including visible light, radio waves, gamma rays, and X-rays, in which electric and magnetic fields vary simultaneously.

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Emissions spectra

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the spectrum of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation emitted due to an electron making a transition from a high energy state to a lower energy state.

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Energy

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the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system

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Energy balance

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a consideration of the energy input, output, and consumption or generation in a process or stage.

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Equilibrium

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a state in which opposing forces or influences are balanced.

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Infrared radiation

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electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths longer than those of visible light.

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Internal energy

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the energy in a system arising from the relative positions and interactions of its parts.

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Joule

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the unit of energy in the International System of Units. It is equal to the amount of work done when a force of 1 newton displaces a mass through a distance of 1 metre in the direction of the force applied.

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Micrometer

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metric unit of measure for length equal to 0.001 mm, or about 0.000039 inch. Its symbol is μm.

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Photons

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a particle representing a quantum of light or other electromagnetic radiation

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Power

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the amount of energy transferred or converted per unit time.

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Temperature

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a measure of how hot or cold something is; specifically, a measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles in an object

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ultraviolet

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having a wavelength shorter than that of the violet end of the visible spectrum but longer than that of X-rays.

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Visible photons

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a range of electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by the human eye.

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Watt

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unit of power, equivalent to one joule per second

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Wavelength

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distance between successive crests of a wave, especially points in a sound wave or electromagnetic wave.

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Albedo

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the proportion of the incident light or radiation that is reflected by a surface, typically that of a planet or moon.

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Greenhouse effect

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the trapping of the sun's warmth in a planet's lower atmosphere, due to the greater transparency of the atmosphere to visible radiation from the sun than to infrared radiation emitted from the planet's surface.

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Greenhouse gases

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a gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect by absorbing infrared radiation, e.g., carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons.

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Solar constant

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the rate at which energy reaches the earth's surface from the sun, usually taken to be 1,388 watts per square meter.

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Carbon cycle

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the series of processes by which carbon compounds are interconverted in the environment, involving the incorporation of carbon dioxide into living tissue by photosynthesis and its return to the atmosphere through respiration, the decay of dead organisms, and the burning of fossil fuels.

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Carbonic acid

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a very weak acid formed in solution when carbon dioxide dissolves in water.

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Chemical weathering

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the erosion or disintegration of rocks, building materials, etc., caused by chemical reactions (chiefly with water and substances dissolved in it) rather than by mechanical processes.

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Deep ocean

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the sea and seabed below 200m because this is where light fades

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Deforestation

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the action of clearing a wide area of trees.

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Fossil fuels

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a natural fuel such as coal or gas, formed in the geological past from the remains of living organisms.

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Greenhouse gas

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a gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect by absorbing infrared radiation, e.g., carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons.

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Halocarbons

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A compound, such as a fluorocarbon, that consists of carbon combined with one or more halogens.

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Isotopes

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each of two or more forms of the same element that contain equal numbers of protons but different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei, and hence differ in relative atomic mass but not in chemical properties; in particular, a radioactive form of an element.

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Mixed layer

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a layer in which active turbulence has homogenized some range of depths.

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PPM

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Parts per million

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Photosynthesis

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the process by which green plants and some other organisms use sunlight to synthesize foods from carbon dioxide and water.

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Radiocarbon dating

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method that provides objective age estimates for carbon-based materials that originated from living organisms.

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Radiocarbon dead

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Radiocarbon decaying slowly in a living organism and no longer containing carbon-14

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Respiration

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a chemical reaction plants need to get energy from glucose, uses glucose and oxygen to produce carbon

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Turnover Time

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the average time that carbon atoms spend in various ecosystems

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Carbon-cycle feedback

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the collection of processes that sees carbon exchanged between the atmosphere, land, ocean and the organisms they contain, and how these processes could change as the Earth warms and atmospheric CO2 concentrations rise.

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Climate sensitivity

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to the amount of global surface warming that will occur in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations

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Cloud-condensation nuclei

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also known as cloud seeds, are small particles typically 0.2 µm, or 1/100 the size of a cloud droplet on which water vapor condenses.

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Cloud feedback

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the coupling between cloudiness and surface air temperature where a surface air temperature change leads to a change in clouds

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Committed warming

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future increases in global temperatures that will be caused by greenhouse gases that have already been emitted.

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Direct radiative effect of aerosols

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the instantaneous radiative impact of all atmospheric particles on the Earth's energy balance

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fast feedbacks

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changes in water vapour, clouds and sea ice extent

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Feedback

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the process in which changing one quantity changes a second quantity, and the change in the second quantity in turn changes the first.

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Ice–albedo feedback

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a positive feedback climate process where a change in the area of ice caps, glaciers, and sea ice alters the albedo and surface temperature of a planet.

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Indirect effect of aerosols

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an increase in aerosol concentration that causes an increase in droplet/particle concentration, causing the reduction in cloud droplet/particle size results in changes in precipitation

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Land-use changes

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a process by which human activities transform the natural landscape

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Lapse-rate feedback

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the coupling between surface air temperature changes and the changes in the region that radiate out to space (upper troposphere) , leading to a change in how much the atmosphere cools with height which again affects the efficiency of the greenhouse effect.

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Radiative forcing

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the change in energy flux in the atmosphere caused by natural or anthropogenic factors of climate change

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Ship tracks

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clouds that form around the exhaust released by ships into the still ocean air

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Slow feedbacks

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a type of feedback that takes a long time (hence 'slow') in response to global warming, but they greatly increase over time and are irreversible.

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Thermal inertia

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the degree of slowness with which the temperature of a body approaches that of its surroundings and which is dependent upon its absorptivity, its specific heat, its thermal conductivity, its dimensions, and other factors

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Vegetation feedback

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increases in vegetation leaf area index (LAI) and vegetation height cause a positive feedback, and warming through reductions in the winter snow-cover albedo

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Water-vapor feedback

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the coupling between water vapour and surface air temperature in which a change in radiative forcing perturbs the surface air temperature, leading to a change in water vapour, which could then amplify or weaken the initial temperature change.

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Eccentricity

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caused by gravitational forces from other planets in our solar system, changes the shape of the orbit on a 100,000-year cycle from a circular to a more elliptical shape.

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Forced variability

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factors external to the climate system, including: Earth's rotation (resulting in the daily cycle); Earth's orbit (resulting in the seasonal cycle); large volcanic eruptions, which can result in more small particles in the stratosphere, lowering temperatures for a few years

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Internal variability

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The natural variability of the climate system that occurs in the absence of evolving external forcing and includes processes intrinsic to the atmosphere, ocean, land, and cryosphere and their interactions

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Milankovitch cycles

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the collective effects of changes in the Earth's movements on its climate over thousands of years.

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Obliquity

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The angle Earth's axis of rotation is tilted as it travels around the Sun

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Outlier

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a data point that falls far away from the overall points.

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Perihelion

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the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is closest to the sun.

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Tectonic motion

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The subsurface movement of formations caused by natural forces of the Earth.