Climate Concepts
The average weather conditions over a long period of time.
What is climate?
A fossil fuel that contributes significantly to carbon emissions.
What is coal (or oil or natural gas)?
Melting of this feature contributes to rising sea levels.
What are glaciers or ice caps?
Planting trees to absorb carbon is an example of this strategy.
What is mitigation?
The term for Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight.
What is albedo?
The name for Earth's warming trend due to human and natural causes.
What is global warming?
The effect caused by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases.
What is the enhanced greenhouse effect?
A region more likely to suffer from climate-related events.
What is a vulnerable area or developing country?
Building flood defenses to prepare for rising sea levels is an example of this.
What is adaptation?
A change that reinforces or amplifies the original effect.
What is a positive feedback loop?
Gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.
What are greenhouse gases?
The type of land use change that reduces carbon absorption by plants.
What is deforestation?
When dry areas become more arid due to climate change.
What is desertification?
A market-based system for limiting carbon emissions.
What is carbon trading?
The increased melting of ice leads to more warming due to this effect.
What is the ice–albedo feedback?
The natural process that keeps the Earth warm enough to support life.
What is the greenhouse effect?
Industrial and farming process that releases methane into the atmosphere.
What is livestock farming or rice cultivation?
The term for people displaced due to climate-related events.
What are climate refugees?
A global agreement aimed at reducing climate change impacts (2015).
What is the Paris Agreement?
The term for processes that counteract change and promote stability.
What is a negative feedback loop?
A visual tool showing temperature change over time, often called the "hockey stick."
What is a climate graph or climate reconstruction graph?
Human-driven causes of climate change are referred to as this.
What are anthropogenic causes?
An area with limited capacity to respond to and recover from climate impacts.
What is a low-resilience community or fragile environment?
Adjusting farming practices in response to changing rainfall is this type of strategy.
What is an adaptation strategy?
The scientific predictions of future climate conditions.
What are climate models?