The Challenge of Natural Hazards

• Continental crust: The thicker, less dense crust that makes up the continents.
• Cyclone: A tropical storm that hits Oceania or Madagascar.
• Destructive plate margin: A plate margin where two plates are moving towards each other.
• Eyewall: An area of a tropical storm with the most intense, powerful winds and torrential rain.
• Ferrel Cell: At around 60° either side of the equator, moist air rises, and travels to lower latitudes at around 30° where it sinks, along with air travelling from the equator.
• Fossil fuels: Fuels made up of the remains of organic material, such as oil, coal and gas.
• Greenhouse Gases: Gases in the Earth’s atmosphere that trap energy in the Earth’s system and contribute to the greenhouse effect (carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour and nitrous oxides).
• Climate change: A distinct change in global or regional patterns of climate, such as changes in temperature or precipitation patterns.
• Hadley Cell: At the equator, hot moist air rises, moves to higher latitudes (30°) and sinks.
• Hotspot: An area where unusually hot magma breaks through the middle of a plate and travels up to the surface, creating a volcano.
• Hazard risk: The probability that a natural hazard will negatively affect a population.
• Conservative plate margin: A plate margin where two plates are moving alongside each other.
• Constructive plate margin: A plate margin where two plates are moving away from each other.
• Hydrological hazard: A hazard caused by the movement of water on the land.
• Ice core: A cylinder of ice extracted from an ice sheet or glacier, which is used to analyse past environmental conditions.
• Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS): The process of capturing carbon dioxide that would normally be emitted into the atmosphere and storing it underground in reservoirs.
• Immediate responses: Actions taken as soon as the hazard happens and in its immediate aftermath (hours, days, and potentially a week or so after the event).
• Long-term responses: Actions taken after the immediate responses when the effects of the hazard have been minimised (weeks, months, and years after the event).
• Milankovitch Cycles: The cyclical variations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
• Mitigation: Reducing the causes of climate change, so that climate change slows or even stops.
• Marine sediment core: A cylinder of ocean sediments removed from the ocean floor, which is used to analyse past environmental conditions.
• Oceanic crust: The thinner, denser crust that makes up the ocean floor.
• Natural hazard: A naturally occurring event that is a threat to a population.
• Plate margin: The point at which two plates meet.