SOL 2 Physical Geography Vocabulary Hurricanes Severe tropical

SOL 2 Physical Geography Vocabulary

Hurricanes • Severe tropical storms occurring in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Oceans. • Winds exceed more than 74 mph.

Cyclones • Another name for a hurricane, primarily used in the Indian and South Pacific Oceans

Typhoons • A hurricane that forms in the Western Pacific Ocean

Monsoon • A wind system that reverses its direction seasonally • Wet Season – Summer • Dry Season – Winter • Mainly in South Asia, Southeast Asia

Tornado • A localized and violently destructive windstorm occurring over land • Funnel-shaped cloud extending toward the ground

Desertification • The destruction of existing grasslands to form desert. • Occurs due to overgrazing, deforestation, drought, and the burning of extensive areas.

Deforestation • The removal of forests by cutting and burning to provide land for agricultural purposes, residential or industrial building sites, roads, etc.

Acid Rain • Cloud or rain droplets containing pollutants, such as oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, to make them acidic

Polders • Areas of reclaimed land that were once part of the sea bed in the Netherlands

Water Diversion • Changing the natural flow of water to another location by using dams, canals, or pipelines.

Agricultural Terracing • A leveled section of a hilly cultivated area, designed as a method of soil conservation to slow or prevent the rapid surface runoff of irrigation water.

Taiga • A cool forest of cone -bearing evergreen trees; also called a boreal forest

Tundra • A treeless area in the Arctic with permafrost that supports vegetation such as lichens, mosses, and stunted shrubs

Low Latitudes • Tropical Region – hot, really hot! • Located between 23 ½°South to 23 ½°North

Middle Latitudes • • Temperate Region – Think four seasons VA is located here! 23 ½ ° North to 66 ½ ° North 23 ½ ° South to 66 ½ ° South

High Latitudes • Polar Region • 66 ½° North to 90 ° North • 66 ½ ° South to 66 ½° South • VERY COLD!

Weather • The condition of the atmosphere at any particular time and place.

Rain Forest • A forest which grows in a region of heavy annual precipitation

Climate • The weather in some location averaged over some long period of time

Greenhouse Effect • Warming that results when solar radiation is trapped by the atmosphere; caused by atmospheric gases that allow sunshine to pass through but absorb heat that is radiated back from the warmed surface of the earth

Climate Change (Global Warming) • An increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere (especially a sustained increase that causes climatic changes)

Orographic Effect (Rain Cycle) • Rainfall that results from or is enhanced by mechanical lifting of an air mass over mountains.

Natural Hazards • A threat of a naturally occurring event that will have a negative effect on people or the environment

Ring of Fire • An area where large numbers of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean.

Plate Tectonics • Large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere