The envelope of gases surrounding the Earth.

The glossary helps novices to learn a bit about weather and climate. But also the experienced researcher can find out how CRA looks on the climate risk science and what definitions CRA adopts. So we both speak a common language. The glossary is updated and enlarged frequently.  

The part of the Earth and its atmosphere where life can exist.

Long-term weather. The World Meteorological Society defines "long" as taking 30 years or longer. "Climate" refers to the long-term average (trend) and also to the size of the variations around the trend (climate variability). Modern views consider not only the long-term state of the atmosph [..]

Contains information about past climate changes. Examples: stalagmites, corals, ice cores and sediment cores.

Changes of the mean state and/or changes of the variability of climate variables. Causes of climatic changes are natural as well as human.

Risk that variables in the climate/weather system reach values that affect human life adversely. This relates to extreme values of the climate or weather variables: high wind speed (storm), high river water stages (flood), low water stages (drought), and so forth. This general, "anthropocentric" [..]

In risk analysis of climate or weather data, the objective is to quantify the climate risk. Climate risk analysis includes data selection and generation, adaptation of risk analysis methods and the interpretation of the results. Climate risk analysis is the initial step in managing the risk, and in making decisions in what [..]

Corals often grow in bands, from which we can extract time information by taking a core sample. The oxygen or carbon isotopic levels provide indirect ("proxy") evidence about changes in temperature and precipitation. Corals are climate archives, containing information on local to regional space scales and [..]

Water on Earth in its frozen form, including floating ice, glaciers and polar ice caps.