Climatic hazards Flashcards
Coriolis effect
Deflecting force produced by the rotation of the earth, deflecting objects to the right of their path in the northern hemisphere and to the left of their path in the southern hemisphere.
Depression
Low pressure system caused when warmer masses rise over colder air masses.
Eye
Central area of a tropical storm, characterised by calm conditions or light variable winds.
Jet Stream
High altitude relatively strong wind concentrated in a narrow band.
Polar front
The line which marks the meeting place of cold polar air and warm tropical air.
Blocking anti-cyclone
Area of high pressure which remains relatively stationary in comparison to approaching low pressure systems and so blocks their passage over an area.
Ana front
Weather front in which there is strong vertical movement of air caused by the large temperature differences between the warm air mass and the cold air mass.
Kata front
Weather from in which the temperature differences between air and cold air area small so the vertical uplift of air is limited.
Climatic hazards
An extreme weather of climate event that results in harm/damage to people property, infrastructure and land use.
Disaster
Serious disruption of the functioning of a community a society, causing widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.
Vulnerability
The characteristics of a person or group in terms of their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a natural hazard.
Risk
Probability of loss resulting from the interaction of a hard and a vulnerability.
Rossby waves
‘meandering rivers of air’ formed by westerly winds. There are three to six waves per hemisphere, formed by major relief barriers, thermal differences and the sub-tropical jet flows westwards.
Hadley Cell
Convectional cell, At the equator warm air rises forming an area of low pressure, it moves polewards and at the sub topics this air sinks because it is colder and denser, forms high pressure at the sub tropics.
Polar cell
Due to cold sinking at the poles and moving outwards to the mid latitudes.
