Environmental issues

Adaptation

Initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human

systems from existing or expected climate change effects.

Autonomous adaptation

Actions taken voluntarily by decision makers (such as

farmers or city leaders)

Planned adaptation

Interventions by governments to address needs judged unlikely to

be met by autonomous actions—often adaptations larger in scale.

Afforestation

Planting of new forests on lands that historically have not contained

forests.

Anthropogenic emissions

Emissions of greenhouse gases

Attribution

The process of establishing the most likely causes for the detected change

with some defined level of confidence.

Carbon Flux

Transfer of carbon from one carbon pool to another in units of

measurement of mass per unit area and time.

Carbon sequestration

Process that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

Climate

Usually defined as the average weather, or more rigorously, as the statistical

description in terms of the mean and variability of interest over a period of time

Climate Feedback

An interaction between processes in the climate system when the result of an initial process triggers changes in a second process that in turn influences the initial one. A positive feedback intensifies the original process, and a negative feedback dampens it.

Climate Projection

A projection of the response of the climate system to emission or

concentration scenarios of greenhouse gases and aerosols, or radiative forcing

scenarios, often based upon simulations by climate models.

Climate scenario

A plausible representation of future climate state, based on an

internally consistent set of relationships explicitly constructed for investigating the

potential consequences of anthropogenic climate change, often serving as input to impact models.

Climate sensitivity

the equilibrium change in the annual mean global surface temperature following a doubling of the atmospheric equivalent carbon dioxide concentration.

Climate shift

An abrupt shift or jump in mean values signaling a change in climate

regime.

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

Basin-wide warming of the tropical Pacific east

of the dateline.

Energy balance

The difference between the total incoming and total outgoing energy

in the climate system. If this balance is positive, warming occurs; if it is negative, cooling

occurs.

External forcing

An agent outside the climate system causing a change in the climate

system.

Heterotrophic respiration

The release of carbon dioxide from decomposition of

organic matter.

Residual Impacts (Climate Change)

The impacts of climate change that would occur after adaptation.

Level of Scientific Understanding

An index on a 5-step scale designed to characterize the degree of scientific

understanding of the radiative forcing agents that affect climate change.

Meridional Overturning Circulation

A zonally averaged, large-scale meridional (north-south) overturning circulation in the oceans.

Paleoclimate

Climate during periods prior to the development of measuring instruments, including historic and geologic time, for which only proxy climate records are available.

Patterns of climate variability

Natural variability of the climate system fostered by

dynamic atmospheric circulation and its interaction with the land and ocean surfaces.

Radiative forcing

The change in the net irradiance at the tropopause due to a change

in an external driver of climate change, such as a change in the concentration of carbon dioxide or the output of the Sun.

Representative Concentration Pathways

Scenarios that represent time series of emissions and concentrations of all of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and aerosols and chemically active gases, as well as land use/land cover5

Saltwater Intrusion

Displacement of fresh surface water or groundwater by the

advance of saltwater due to its greater density.

Sink

Any process, activity or mechanism, which removes a greenhouse gas, an

aerosol, or a precursor of a greenhouse gas or aerosol from the atmosphere, such as carbon sequestration in forests wood products.

SRES scenarios

Scenarios constructed to explore future developments in the global environment with special reference to the production of greenhouse gases and aerosol precursor emissions.

Uptake

The addition of a substance of concern to a reservoir.

RCP 2.6 Scenario

• - Global population will reach 9 billion people

  - Reduction in oil usage

• - Expansion of cropland

• - Higher demand in livestock

• - A world that is engaged in curbing climate change

RCP 4.5 Scenario

Representing a global temperature rise between 3.5 and 5 c. Focuses on land use.

RCP 6 Scenario

Represents a global temperature rise of between 3 and 3.5 c.

RCP 8.5 Scenario

Represents a global temperature rise of 5 c.

Rapid carbon dioxide production.

Why do RCPs exist?

They are tools in decision-making.