SW-NCA-color-FINALweb

484 assessment of climate change in the southwest united statesairshed – a geographical space wherein the air normally flows or is contained, so that airpollution conditions are relatively uniform within italbedo – The percentage of light reflected by an object. Snow-covered areas have a highalbedo (0.9 or 90%) due to their white color. Human activity has changed the albedo ofvarious regions around the globe.ambient temperature – temperature of the surroundings; background temperatureanadromous fish – fish species that spend most of their lives in the ocean but hatch andspawn in fresh water; for example, salmon are anadromousannual plants – plants that live only for a single season or year; some ornamental plants,like zinnias, are annual, as are some crops, such as peas, corn and wheatanomaly – a deviation from the norm; climate data are often expressed in terms ofanomalies from a long-term average, such as “the 2002 annual temperature was a 3°Fpositive anomaly from 1971-2000” (in other words the 2002 annual temperature was 3°Fhigher than the 1971-2000 average)anthropogenic – human-caused or human-inducedanthropogenic waste heat – heat produced by human activities for which there is nouseful application, such as the heat generated to cool a structureanticyclone – the circulation of winds around a high pressure center, traveling clockwisein the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere;anticyclones are associated with high atmospheric pressure and dry conditions.arbovirus – a virus spread by arthropod vectors such as mosquitoes, lice and ticksarmoring – the artificial reinforcement of natural areas, as by the erection of hard structures,such as a seawall, to protect a shorelineassessment – critical evaluation of information for purposes of guiding decisions on acomplex issueatmospheric rivers – narrow corridors of atmospheric moisture typically found near orahead of cold front storms, which deliver enormous amounts of water vapor in low level(2000 km [1243 mi]), and narrow (less than about500 km [311 mi] wide) corridors from over the Pacific OceanB1 – a greenhouse gas emissions scenario used as an input into global climate models toproject climate changes in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, as described in its SpecialReport on Emissions Scenarios. This scenario assumes a future in which global populationpeaks in the year 2050 and then declines, with economies that shift rapidly toward theintroduction of clean and resource-efficient technologies and an emphasis on global solutionsto economic, social, and environmental sustainability. This combination resultsin lower GHG emissions and smaller increases in global temperatures.backshore – the coastal area above the high-water linebasin scale – denotes a larger-scale area with the extent of a watershed or series ofwatershedsbeach nourishment – replenishment of beach sand (that has been lost through erosion