Question | Answer |
Eye | The still centre of a tropical storm (hurricane) where air is falling |
Flash flood | A sudden and severe flood due to heavy rain |
Storm surge | An unusually high tide, associated with areas of low pressure and on-shore winds (Holland) |
Tropical storm | An intense spinning storm, perhaps 650km across. An extreme low pressure system causes winds to rotate inwards, bringing heavy rainfall. Formed overhot sea surfaces (27*C) |
Hurricane | The name for a tropical storm in the Carribean/USA regions |
Cyclone | The name for a tropical storm in the Indian Ocean |
Typhoon | The name for tropical storms in the Far East (eg Japan) |
Saffir-Simpson | A scale which measures the speeds of hurricanes on a scale of 1-5 |
Levees | Man made banks parallel to rivers to prevent flooding |
Looters | People who take advantage of the chaos in a storm to steal from homes and shops |
Sahel | The semi-arid zone south of the Sahara where drought and desertification is happening |
Global warming | The gradual increase in the Earth's temperature, which may be caused by an increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere |
Drought | A long continuous period without precipitation |
Greenhouse gases | Atmospheric gases (eg Carbon Dioxide and Methane) prevent heat escaping out to space |
Evapotranspiration | Evaporation from all the earth's surfaces, including transpiration from plants |
Famine | A very serious shortage of food, leading to deaths from starvation of people over a wide area |
Geology | The study of the earth's rocks, includes looking at their ability to absorb water |
Horn of Africa | The extreme eastern corner of NE Africa, including Somalia. Suffered drought in 2011+ |
La Nina | A period when the waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean are 3-5*C cooler than normal. It is thought this caused drought in the Horn of Africa and tropical storms to Australia in 2011 |