Climate Change Glossary
Word Definitions Related to
Climate Change and Global Warming
Ice cap
A dome shaped ice mass covering a highland area that is considerably smaller in extent than anice sheet.
Ice Core
A cylindrical section of ice removed from a glacier or an ice sheet in order to study climate patterns of the past. By performing chemical analyses on the air trapped in the ice, scientists can estimate the percentage of carbon dioxide and other trace gases in the atmosphere at a given time.
Ice sheet
A mass of land ice which is sufficiently deep to cover most of the underlying bedrock topography, so that its shape is mainly determined by its internal dynamics (the flow of the ice as it deforms internally and slides at its base). An ice sheet flows outwards from a high central plateau with a small average surface slope. The margins slope steeply, and the ice is discharged through fast-flowing ice streams or outlet glaciers, in some cases into the sea or into ice-shelves floating on the sea. There are only two large ice sheets in the modern world, on Greenland and Antarctica, the Antarctic ice sheet being divided into East and West by the Transantarctic Mountains; during glacial periods there were others.
Ice shelf
A floating ice sheet of considerable thickness attached to a coast (usually of great horizontal extent with a level or gently undulating surface); often a seaward extension of ice sheets.
IMAGE model
The Integrated Model for Assessment of the Greenhouse Effect. This is one of the climate models applied for the construction of the IPCC SRES scenarios.
Indirect aerosol effect
Aerosols may lead to an indirect radiative forcing of the climate system through acting as condensation nuclei or modifying the optical properties and lifetime of clouds. Two indirect effects are distinguished:
First indirect effect
A radiative forcing induced by an increase in anthropogenic aerosols which cause an initial increase in droplet concentration and a decrease in droplet size for fixed liquid water content, leading to an increase of cloud albedo. This effect is also known as the Twomey effect. This is sometimes referred to as the cloud albedo effect. However this is highly misleading since the second indirect effect also alters cloud albedo.
Second indirect effect
A radiative forcing induced by an increase in anthropogenic aerosols which cause a decrease in droplet size, reducing the precipitation efficiency, thereby modifying the liquid water content, cloud thickness, and cloud life time. This effect is also known as the cloud life time effect or Albrecht effect.
Industrial
In·dus·tri·al [in-'d&s-trE-&l]. Relating to industry; in this case, industrial practices refer how products are made and used.
Industrial revolution
A period of rapid industrial growth with far-reaching social and economic consequences, beginning in England during the second half of the eighteenth century and spreading to Europe and later to other countries including the United States. The invention of the steam engine was an important trigger of this development. The industrial revolution marks the beginning of a strong increase in the use of fossil fuels and emission of, in particular, fossil carbon dioxide. In this Report the terms pre-industrial and industrial refer, somewhat arbitrarily, to the periods before and after 1750, respectively.
Infrared Radiation
Radiation emitted by the Earth's surface, the atmosphere and the clouds. It is also known as terrestrial or long-wave radiation. Infrared radiation has a distinctive range of wavelengths ("spectrum") longer than the wavelength of the red color in the visible part of the spectrum. The spectrum of infrared radiation is practically distinct from that of solar or short-wave radiation because of the difference in temperature between the Sun and the Earth-atmosphere system. See radiation, greenhouse effect, enhanced greenhouse effect, global warming.
Instrumental period
Period after 1855 that allowed us to reconstruct temperatures because thermometers were producing reconstructable data. Before 1855 proxy indicators were used to determine temperatures.
Integrated assessment
A method of analysis that combines results and models from the physical, biological, economic and social sciences, and the interactions between these components, in a consistent framework, to evaluate the status and the consequences of environmental change and the policy responses to it.
Integrated Environmental Assessment
The work field that researches causes and impacts of environmental issues and policy measures (solutions) by combining economic, environmental and social sciences. It is a subdivision of the work field of Environmental Systems Analysis. This is a type of Environmental Science that applies many different tools, including environmental models, environmental impact assessment and environmental indicators, to describe and find solutions for environmental problems.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The IPCC was established jointly by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization in 1988. The purpose of the IPCC is to assess information in the scientific and technical literature related to all significant components of the issue of climate change. The IPCC draws upon hundreds of the world's expert scientists as authors and thousands as expert reviewers. Leading experts on climate change and environmental, social, and economic sciences from some 60 nations have helped the IPCC to prepare periodic assessments of the scientific underpinnings for understanding global climate change and its consequences. With its capacity for reporting on climate change, its consequences, and the viability of adaptation and mitigation measures, the IPCC is also looked to as the official advisory body to the world's governments on the state of the science of the climate change issue. For example, the IPCC organized the development of internationally accepted methods for conducting national greenhouse gas emission inventories.
Internal variability
See: Climate variability.
Inverse modelling
A mathematical procedure by which the input to a model is estimated from the observed outcome, rather than vice versa. It is, for instance, used to estimate the location and strength of sources and sinks of CO2 from measurements of the distribution of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, given models of the global carbon cycle and for computing atmospheric transport.
IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the international organization founded by the United Nations that tries to predict the impact of the greenhouse effect according to existing climate models and literature information. The Panel consists of more than 2500 scientific and technical experts from more than 60 countries all over the world. It is therefore referred to as the largest peer-reviewed scientific cooperation project in history.
IPCC SRES scenarios
Special Reports on Emission scenarios by the IPCC, containing information on possible future climate developments and consequences for society and the environment. Emissions scenarios are a central component of any assessment of climate change. See for more information the IPCC SRES scenarios page.
Isostatic land movements
Isostasy refers to the way in which the lithosphere and mantle respond to changes in surface loads. When the loading of the lithosphere is changed by alterations in land ice mass, ocean mass, sedimentation, erosion or mountain building, vertical isostatic adjustment results, in order to balance the new load.
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