Definitions Flashcards
Inner Urban.
The innermost parts of a town or city.
Sub-Urban.
The outer area of a town or city.
Re-Urbanisation.
The recent trend for the population of city centres to grow - usually due to redevelopment of old industrial (brownfield) sites.
Economic migrants.
People who move to another country to find work.
Quality of Life.
The level of wealth and comfort experienced by any group of individual.
Standards of Living.
Health, wealth and education.
Greenfield site.
A site that had never been built on before, usually on the outskirts of cities or in farmland.
Brownfield site.
A site that has been built on before, tends to be inner city.
Deprivation.
Lacking features such as employment or basic services which are necessary for a reasonable standard of living.
Carbon Cycle.
Constant cycling of carbon through the environment between the atmosphere, Earth’s crust, living organisms and oceans.
Carbon Sinks.
Places where carbon is stored for long periods of time. More carbon is added than leaves.
Carbon sources.
More carbon leaves than is added.
Greenhouse Gases.
Gases which allow short-wave radiation to pass through but absorb and re-emit longwave radiation.
Shortwave Radiation.
Light energy from the Sun (UV and Visible).
Longwave Radiation.
Heat energy from the Sun (Infrared).
Greenhouse Effect.
Natural process when the Earth’s atmosphere traps solar radiation warming the surface of the Earth.
Enhanced Greenhouse Effect.
Unnatural process where extra heat is trapped due to increasing levels of greenhouse gases produced by humans.
Keeling curve.
Graph showing the rise of CO₂ in our atmosphere.
Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
A broad band of atmosphere that circles the tropical latitudes. The ITCZ is characterised by low pressure, cloud and heavy rain.
Drought.
A long period of time with little precipitation, often several months or years.
Insolation.
Solar radiation that reaches the Earth’s surface (energy received per cm² per minute).
Jet stream.
A fast flowing (200km/h) current of air that circles the planet at a height of 10km.
Global circulation.
World wide system of winds that transport heat from tropical to polar latitudes. Made up of several cells. It explains the location of climatic zones, ecosystems and weather hazards.
Cells.
Circular air movements.
Wind.
Large scale movements of air.
Latitude.
Horizontal lines of the Earth.
Longitude.
Vertical lines of the Earth.
Monsoon.
A climate typical to Southern Asia where seasonal changes in the direction of prevailing winds causes wet and dry seasons. May-Sept: wet/winds from SW. Oct-Apr: dry/winds from NE. Due to the changing location of the ITCZ which is North in July.
Maritime.
Influenced by the sea.
Isobar.
Lines that join places of equal pressure. The close the isobars are on a weather map the stronger the wind will be.
Synoptic charts.
Maps that show several weather conditions at a particular time.
Ecosystems.
Natural systems made up of biotic (living parts) and non-biotic (non-living parts) in an area which interact through chemical and physical links. Distribution determined by: climate, relief, geology and soils.
Biome.
A global ecosystem.
Microclimate.
Any area where the climate differs from the surrounding area.
Urban microclimate.
The small scale, local climate of a large city which is influenced by its buildings and traffic.
Urban heat island.
When a large city has higher temperatures than the surrounding area.
Nutrient stores.
A part of an ecosystem where nutrients are kept.
Nutrient flows.
The movement of minerals from one store to another.
Leaching.
Washing soluble nutrients out of the soil.
Water cycle.
The flow of water between the Earth’s surface and atmosphere.
Succession.
A gradual process incurred by the change in the number of individuals of each species of a community and by establishment of new species populations that may gradually replace the original inhabitants.
Decomposer.
Breaks down dead materials and returns nutrients to the soil.
Nutrient cycle.
The movement of nutrients in the ecosystem between stores. In the hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere and atmosphere.
Producer.
Uses sunlight to create energy through photosynthesis. A plant.
Consumer.
Gains energy from eating other things.
Food chain.
The interconnections between different organisms that rely on one another as their source of food. What eats what - the movement of energy.
Food web.
Shows how all the biotic parts of an ecosystem are connected. The ecosystem of interlocking and interconnecting food chains.
