[Andy Mayhew]

John C	Posted 6/8/2004 9:28 AM (#132411) Subject: GLOSSARY:
Lightning Posts: 577 Location: Canada	The idea of a glossary was discussed earlier on this board. There is an excellent glossary available from the AMS (American Meteorological Society) found under Tools above, however it does not discuss some of the specific climate issues that seem to come up on this board. Thus a "climate change" specific glossary has been developed. The first version is given below and I invite comments on it (either private mail to me or one of the moderators or post your question or comment below). The purpose of this glossary is to define terms that are specific to this group (all terms have been taken from past threads) but to avoid long descriptions. For the terms in the glossary, if a definition is needed, the first place consulted is the AMS Glossary. If the description is not given there or is not sufficient then other sources have been used. Where possible these other sources are from outside the climate change debate circle. All members and observers are encouraged to comment on the Glossary and feel free to: 1) Provide new terms to define 2) Suggest corrections to current terms. If you are new to the group or don't understand a term but don't wish to post your question, please private mail me and I will add it to the list. If you don't know what it means then probably most don't! ** TCCG (The Climate Change Glossary) ** AGW ------------- Anthropogenic Global Warming CET -------------- Central England Temperature CRU -------------- Climate Research Unit El Nino ---------- The Little Boy - A disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system GHG -------------- Greenhouse Gas GRL -------------- Geophysical Research Letters Hockey-stick --- Reference to the graph in Figure 3a in this paper Holocene ------- 11,000 years ago to present IPCC ---------- -- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change LGM ------------ Last glacial maximum LIA --------------- Little Ice Age MSU ------------- Microwave Sounding Unit MWP ------------ Medival Warm Period NAO ------------- North Atlantic Oscillation PETM ------------ Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum Pleistocene ---- 1.8 million to 11,000 years ago PPM ------------- Parts per million (see unit number 6) RPTW ----------- Rapid True Polar Wander SOI -------------- Southern Oscillation Index SST -------------- Sea Surface Temperature THC -------------- ThermoHaline Circulation UHI -------------- Urban Heat Islands VOSTOK -------- Ice core station in Antarctic. W/m2 ----------- Units of Watts per square meter - used as a measure of radiated energy. Edited by John C 15/10/2004 6:19 PM