Climate Change Glossary
Word Definitions Related to
Climate Change and Global Warming
Barometric Pressure
Bar·o·me·tric Pres·sure ["bar-&-'me-trik 'pre-sh&r]. The pressure of the atmosphere (usually expressed in terms of the height of a column of mercury).
Barricade
Bar·ri·cade ['bar-&-"kAd]. An obstruction or rampart constructed to block the advance of the ocean.
Baseline emissions
The emissions that would occur without policy intervention. Baseline estimates are needed to determine the effectiveness of emissions mitigation strategies.
Biodiversity
life in all its forms, essential to maintain functioning ecosystems that provide services essential for human survival and quality of life.
Biogeochemical Cycle
Movements through the Earth system of key chemical constituents essential to life, such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus.
Biomass
The total mass of living organisms in a given area or volume; recently dead plant material is often included as dead biomass.
Total dry weight of all living organisms that can be supported at each tropic level in a food chain. Also, materials that are biological in origin, including organic material (both living and dead) from above and below ground, for example, trees, crops, grasses, tree litter, roots, and animals and animal waste.
Bioplastics
Instead of petroleum, biorenewable materials such as starch from corn or whey from cheese-making can be used to make plastics. Industry uses microbes or their enzymes to convert biomass to feedstocks, building blocks for biodegradable plastics, industrial solvents and specialty lubricants.
Biosphere (terrestrial and marine)
The part of the Earth system comprising all ecosystems and living organisms, in the atmosphere, on land (terrestrial biosphere) or in the oceans (marine biosphere), including derived dead organic matter, such as litter, soil organic matter and oceanic detritus.
Black Carbon
Operationally defined species based on measurement of light absorption and chemical reactivity and/or thermal stability; consists of soot, charcoal, and/or possible light-absorbing refractory organic matter.
Borehole
Any exploratory hole drilled into the Earth or ice to gather geophysical data. Climate researchers often take ice core samples, a type of borehole, to predict atmospheric composition in earlier years. See ice core.
Burden
The total mass of a gaseous substance of concern in the atmosphere.
Browse Climate Change Glossary by letter
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M ,N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z
