World at Risk Glossary
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Transcript of World at Risk Glossary
World at Risk
Glossary
Chapter 1 – Global Hazards:
Context Hazard: Widespread threat due to environmental factors such as climate change
Geophysical Hazard: A hazard formed by tectonic/geological processes
Hazard: A perceived natural event which has the potential to threaten life and property
Hydro-meteorological Hazard: A hazard formed by hydrological and atmospheric processes
Vulnerability: A high risk combined with an inability of individuals and communities to cope
Disaster: A hazard becoming reality in an event that causes deaths and damage to goods/property and the environment
Chapter 2 – Global Hazard Trends:
Frequency: How often an event of a certain magnitude occurs
Magnitude: The size of the event
El Nino: The appearance of warm surface water from time to time in the eastern equatorial pacific
La Nina: The appearance of colder than average sea surface temperatures in the central and east equatorial pacific
Chapter 3 – Global Hazard Patterns:
Asthenosphere: A semi-molten zone of rock underlying the earth’s crust
Conservative Boundary: A boundary between 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 or moving apart
Destructive Boundary: A boundary between plates where the plates are converging (moving together)
Lithosphere: The crust of the Earth, around 80-90km thick
Magma: Molten material that rises towards the Earth’s surface when hotspots within 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. This migrates seasonally
Chapter 4 – Climate Change and its Causes:
Climate: The average conditions of precipitation, temperature, pressure and wind measured over a 30-year period
Climate Change: Any long-term trend or shift in climate detected by a sustained shift in the average value for any climatic element
Thermohaline Circulation: A global system of surface and deep-water ocean currents, driven by differences in temperature and salinity between areas of the oceans.
Thermal Expansion: The increased volume of the oceans as a result of their higher water temperatures leading to sea level rise. It accounted for about 60% of sea-level rise in the late twentieth century
Climate Forcing: Any mechanism that alters the global energy balance and ‘forces’ the climate to change in response
Albedo: How much solar radiation a surface reflects
Enhanced Greenhouse Effect: This occurs when the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increase owing to human activity
Fossil Fuels: Energy sources that are rich in carbon and which release carbon dioxide when burnt
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 acts to amplify or reduce further output
Chapter 5 – The Impacts of Global Warming:
Habitat: The environment of plants and animals, in which they live, feed and reproduce
Permafrost: Permanently frozen ground
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
Chapter 6 – Coping with Climate Change:
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 adaptive capacity to cope with climate change. Vulnerability is a result of the magnitude of the change, its speed of onset, the sensitive of the system and its adaptive capacity
Biofuels: Fuel such as ethanol extracted from plants
Mitigation: Reducing the output of greenhouse gases and increases the size of greenhouse has sinks
Adaptation: Means changing our lifestyles to cope with a new environment rather than trying to stop climate change
Greenhouse Gas Sinks: A natural or artificial reservoir that accumulates and stores some carbon-containing chemical compounds
Chapter 7 – The Challenge of Global Hazards for the Future
Sustainable Development: Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs