Glossary

Alps: A mountain range in Europe, which stretches from Slovenia and Austria in the East and through Italy, Germany, France, Liechtenstein and Switzerland in the West.

Cascade Mountains: A 400 mile stretch of mountains in California, Washington, and Oregon. Their highest point is Mount Rainier in Washington.

Climate: A place's average weather based on patterns in temperature and rainfall over many years.

Convection: When heat is transferred by movement within the Earth's atmosphere.

Endorheic Basin: A closed basin that allows no outward flow of water to other bodies of water. Water in the basin escapes only through evaporation.

Global Climate Model: Also known as the General Circulation Model, it is a computer program that solves the equations that govern the temperature and motion of the atmosphere. Similar to the models used to forecast weather, but designed to be run for centuries, rather than days. One of the first GCM was put together at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton New Jersey by Syukuro Manabe and Kirk Bryan.

Grasslands:
- An open area of flat land located between temperate forests at high latitudes and desert locations at subtropical latitudes.
- Grass varies in size from 2.1m (7ft) tall with roots that extend 1.8m(6ft) down into the ground, to only a few millimeters tall.
- Grasslands receive 500-900mm of rain per year.
- Grasslands exist in temperatures that range from -20 degrees Celsius to 30 degrees Celsius.
- Tropical grasslands have dry and wet seasons that stay warm all the time. Temperate grasslands have cold winters and warm summers with some rain.

Air is heated more at the equator than the the poles because the sun shines more directly downwards at the equator, so the average amount of solar energy hitting the ground each year is higher.
The warm air rises near the equator and cooler air comes down from the poles.
The moving of warm and cool air between the poles and the equator creates the circulation known as the Hadley cell.

Heat Capacity: The amount of energy required to raise the temperature of a substance one degree.

Hypersaline: Often, water with a salinity greater than about 40%. To compare, fresh water has about 0.5% salinity and ocean water is approximately 35%. Also refers to water with a higher than normal concetration of dissolved salts and minerals.

Lago-Mare: Literally means 'lake-sea'. It characterizes the fresh-to-brackish (mixture of fresh and salt) water conditions that occurred in the lastest stage of the MSC.

Kelp Forests:
- Occur in cold water filled with nutrients.
- Found in open waters along coasts, with the larger ones existing only in water that is less than 20 degrees Celsius.
- Depend greatly on photosynthesis and wont grow deeper than 15-40m.
- Some grow 30-60m per day.
- They are composed of three parts:
  - The Holdfast are the roots that anchor the plant to the sea floor.
  - The Stipe are long slender stalks that extend from the holdfast vertically to the surface.
  - The Fronds are leaf-like attachments to the stipe that are the source of photosynthesis.
- Many plants also have pneumatocysts, which are air bladders located on the stipe or the base of the fronds to keep the plant standing upright.
- Some species of plant exist only for one year, while others can live for up to seven.

M Reflector: An evaporite layer 3 kilometers thick, 100-200 meters below the sea floor of the Mediterranean.

Mohs Scale: Measures hardness by testing a mineral's ability to be scratched by a harder mineral.

Specific Gravity: The relative density of a material. It is the density of the material divided by a reference density.