Chapter 18 Terms
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16 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Adaption | inherited characteristic that increases an organisms chance of survival |
| Aerosols | small particles in atmosphere |
| Carbon Offsets | Are projects that compensate for all or part of a company's greenhouse gas emissions by eliminating the CO2 equivalent of those emissions from another source. |
| El Nino - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) | a seasonal weather event that can cause droughts in Australia and powerful cyclones in the South Pacific |
| Global Climate Change | A broad term that refers to changes in the earth's climate mostly as a result of changes in temperature and precipitation. |
| Global Warming | an increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere (especially a sustained increase that causes climatic changes) |
| Greenhouse Effect | natural situation in which heat is retained in Earth's atmosphere by carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and other gases |
| Greenhouse Gases | Gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and ozone in the atmosphere which are involved in the greenhouse effect. |
| Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change | Scientific intergovernmental body set up by the World Meteorological Organzation and UNEP to provide an objective source of inmformation about the causes of climate change |
| Kyoto Protocol | establishes legally binding commitments for the reduction of four greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride), and two groups of gases (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons) Took place in Rio De Janeiro in 1992 |
| La Nina | The water in the Eastern Pacific Ocean is cooler than usual-opposite from El Nino |
| Milankovitch Cycle | theory that says every 100,000 years the earth naturally cools down and goes into an ice age caused by the wobble of the earth's axis and change of shape of earth orbit. |
| MItigation | to act in such a way as to cause an offense to seem less serious |
| Proxy Indicators | types of indirect evidence that serve as peroxies or substitutes for direct measurements and that shed light on past climate |
| Thermohaline Circulation | water circulation produced by differences in temperature and/or salinity (and therefore density) |
| United Nations Franework Convention on Climate Change | is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to 14, 1992 |
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