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498 assessment of climate change in the southwest united statescan reach heights well over 20 feet and can span hundreds of miles of coastline” (fromNOAA National Hurricane Center)stressor – interactions of economic and cultural globalization, demographic change, andclimate changesubtropics – regions bordering the tropics; the southern part of the Southwest can beconsidered part of the Northern Hemisphere subtropical region. The climate of the subtropicsis usually characterized by semi-arid conditions, and many of the world’s desertsare located in subtropical climate zones.sun kink – misalignment of a railroad from heat stresssupply chain – the movement and storage of raw materials, manufacturing, and finishedgoods from point of origin to point of consumption Supply chains are componentsof the urban metabolism energy flow.sustainable – meeting the needs of the present without compromising the wellbeing offuture generationssynoptic circulation – regional atmospheric pressure patterns and their associated surfacewindstailwater – excess surface water draining from an irrigated fieldteleconnection – a linkage between weather or climate changes occurring in widely separatedregions of the globe. The most well-known teleconnection is the El Niño SouthernOscillation, in which persistent climate changes in the eastern and central tropical PacificOcean can affect the weather and climate of places as far away as East Africa, Alaska,Florida, and so on.temperature gradient – the rate at which temperature changes with depth or heightthermocline – an abrupt temperature gradient in a body of water extending from adepth of about 100m (328 ft) to 1000m (3281 ft); the temperature of the thermocline inthe eastern Pacific Ocean is a determinant of future El Niño Southern Oscillation activitytidal prism – the volume of water leaving an estuary at ebb tidetime series – data taken at fixed intervals at successive points in time; for example, scientistsmight refer to a 100-year record of precipitation in the Southwest as the region’sprecipitation time seriestraceable account – in this document, this consists of (1) the reasoning behind the conclusion,(2) the sources of data and information contributing to the conclusion, (3) anassessment of the amount of evidence and degree of agreement among sources of evidence,(4) an assessment of confidence in the finding, and (5) an assessment of uncertaintyassociated with the finding.transparency – openness and accountabilitytranspiration – the process by which plants take up and use water for cooling and forthe production of biomassuncertainty – estimating uncertainties is intrinsically about describing the limitsto knowledge and for this reason involves expert judgment about the state of that