Extreme Environments Glossary

Antarctic Treaty

• demilitarize Antarctica

• establish it as a zone free of nuclear tests and the disposal of radioactive waste

• ensure that it is used for peaceful purposes only

• promote international scientific cooperation in Antarctica

• set aside disputes over territorial sovereignty

• 1961

anthrax

• infectious disease caused by spore-forming bacterium

• biological weapon

• can survive in frozen human and animal remains for 100s of years

• released by permafrost thaw

• 2016 → 72 nomadic herders hospitalised and 2300 + reindeer died in northern Russia after the region experienced abnormally high temperatures causing an Anthrax outbreak.

Application to extend your EEZ

An appeal towards the United Nations Convention of the Laws of the Seas (UNCLOS) to extend your sea border based on your continental shelf. Example: Highly contested Artic

deflation

erosion by wind of loose material from flat areas of dry, uncemented sediments such as those occruing in deserts, dry lake beds, floodplains, and glacial outwash plains

Desalination

converting brackish or saline water into drinkable water by removing salts and other solids. 2 different ways; reverse osmosis uses pressure to push water through a filter of sorts, and flash distillation which heats water to purify it, but this is more expensive requires more energy and heat

EEZ

An "exclusive economic zone," or "EEZ" is an area of the ocean, generally extending 200 nautical miles (230 miles) beyond a nation's territorial sea, within which a coastal nation has jurisdiction over both living and nonliving resources.

Gradation

the process of levelling or 'wearing down' of the land through erosion

Greening the Desert Project: Jordan

Added wall on contour lines + contour band (irrigation), drip irrigation implemented, using grey water, worm farms allow for more nutrients & up soil production --> permaculture (growing crops year round)

Greenland 7m, Antarctica 72m

How much sea level rise will occur if all land ice in these regions melts will occur.

Louis Agassiz

Made the discovery of glaciers having created most the swiss landscapes. Discovered how striations are created from glacial erosion.

Orographic/Relief Rainfall

Orographic precipitation, rain, snow, or other precipitation produced when moist air is lifted as it moves over a mountain range. As the air rises and cools, orographic clouds form and serve as the source of the precipitation, most of which falls upwind of the mountain ridge.

qattara depression

A depression hollow in Egypt which is the lowest point in the continent of Africa, with its altitude at -133m below sea level.

Solifluction

ground with water which cant go down as ground under is frozen slowly flows down hill with water

speliothems

Speleothems are mineral deposits formed from groundwater within underground caverns (e.g. Stalagmites)

Thwaites 'Doomsday' Glacier

Antarctic glacier of 192,000 km2 who's snout is in the ocean, causing accelerated melting from below and accelerated movement of the glacier into the ocean, causing even more melting. Callled doomsday as it has enough ice to raise sea levels by 1-3m.

Trade winds

Steady winds that blow from the north east in the nothern hemisphere or the south east in the southern hemisphere. There are two belts that encircle the earth and blowing from the tropical high-pressure belts towards the low-pressure zone at the equator.

Zombie Fires

These are wildfires that smolder underground in peat or organic-rich soil during the winter, only to reignite on the surface when conditions warm up, posing a challenge for firefighting and releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere.