Climate Change terms starting with H

42 terms

  1. Hail Showery precipitation in the form of irregular pellets or balls of ice more than 5 mm in diameter, falling from a cumulonimbus cloud.
  2. hailstones Transparent or partially opaque particles of ice that range in size from that of a pea to that of golf balls.
  3. Half-life The time in which half the atoms of a particular radioactive nuclide disintegrate. The half-life is a characteristic property of each radioactive isotope.
  4. haline related to salt.
  5. Halo Any of a variety of bright circles or arcs centered on the sun or moon, caused by the refraction or reflection of light by ice crystals suspended in the…
  6. Halocarbons Compounds containing either chlorine, bromine or fluorine and carbon. Such compounds can act as powerful greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
  7. Halons Compounds, also known as bromofluorocarbons, that contain bromine, fluorine, and carbon.
  8. Haze (abbrev. HZ)- An aggregation in the atmosphere of very fine, widely dispersed, solid or liquid particles, or both, giving the air an opalescent appearance…
  9. Heat Pressure and intimidation used by a casino to discourage card counters.
  10. Heat Balance Energy output from a system that equals energy input.
  11. Heat balance of the Earth-atmosphere system Heat balance of the Earth-atmosphere system The equilibrium that exists on the average between the radiation received by the Earth and atmosphere from the…
  12. Heat budget Heat budget Relation between fluxes of heat into and out of a given region or body and the heat stored by the system.
  13. heat capacity The ratio of the heat absorbed (or released) by a system to the corresponding temperature rise (or fall).
  14. Heat Content The amount of heat in a quantity of matter at a specific temperature and pressure.
  15. Heat flux Heat flux Amount of heat, transferred in a liquid, in particular in the atmosphere, per unit of time through a unit area.
  16. heat index (HI) An index that combines air temperature and relative humidity to determine an apparent temperature-how hot it actually feels.
  17. Heat Sink A structure or media that absorbs heat.
  18. Heat Source A structure or media from which heat can be absorbed or extracted.
  19. Heinrich Events periods of increased discharge of icebergs from the margin of ice sheets into the North Atlantic Ocean during the last glacial.
  20. Hertz A measure of the number of cycles or wavelengths of electrical energy per second; U.S. electricity supply has a standard frequency of 60 hertz.
  21. High (abbrev. HI)- In meteorology, a region of high pressure; also known as anticyclone.
  22. High-level clouds High-level clouds Cirrus, Cirrocumulus and Cirrostratus are high-level clouds.
  23. Higher heating value Quantity of heat liberated by the complete combustion of a unit volume or weight of a fuel assuming that the produced water vapor is completely condensed…
  24. Histosol Wet organic soils, such as peats and mucks.
  25. Hoarfrost Hoarfrost A deposit of interlocking ice crystals (hoar crystals) formed by direct sublimation on objects, usually those of small diameter freely exposed…
  26. Holocene epoch an epoch of the Quaternary period dating from the end of the Pleistocene approximately 11,500 years ago until the present.
  27. horizontal wind The horizontal wind in terms of either speed and direction, or the zonal (u) and meridional (v) components.
  28. Humidity A measure of the moisture content of air; may be expressed as absolute, mixing ratio, saturation deficit, relative, or specific.
  29. Hurricane (abbrev. HURCN) A tropical cyclone in the Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, or eastern Pacific, which the maximum 1-minute sustained surface wind…
  30. Hydrocarbons Substances containing only hydrogen and carbon. Fossil fuels are made up of hydrocarbons.
  31. Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) Compounds containing hydrogen, fluorine, chlorine, and carbon atoms. Although ozone depleting substances, they are less potent at destroying stratospheric…
  32. Hydroelectric Power Plant A power plant that produces electricity by the force of water falling through a hydro turbine that spins a generator.
  33. Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) Compounds containing only hydrogen, fluorine, and carbon atoms. They were introduced as alternatives to ozone depleting substances in serving many…
  34. Hydrologic Cycle Cycle of water movement from atmosphere to Earth by precipitation and its return to the atmosphere by interception, evaporation, runoff, infiltration…
  35. hydrologic cycle (or water cycle) the combined fluxes of water occurring on, above, and below the surface of the earth.
  36. Hydrometeor A particle of condensed water (liquid, snow, ice, graupel, hail) in the atmosphere.
  37. hydrometeor types Information that delineates hydrometeors into such microphysical classes as rain, snow, graupel, and hail.
  38. Hydropower The force of flowing water moving downstream creates energy that can be harnessed and turned into electricity.
  39. Hydrosphere The region that includes all the earth's liquid water, frozen water, floating ice, frozen upper layer of soil, and the small amounts of water vapor in the…
  40. Hygrometer An instrument which measures the humidity of the air.
  41. hygroscopic growth The rate that aerosol particles grow at relative humidity values less than 100 percent.
  42. Hypothesis A tentative proposal made to explain certain observations or facts that requires further investigation to be verified.