16
votes
What is the difference between climate change and global warming?
Is "Climate Change" a derived theory within "Global Warming", or vice versa?
Is "Climate Change" a reiteration of an earlier theory, "Global Warming"?
Are these terms in fact synonymous?
In ...
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12
votes
Water levels: What does "mBf" mean?
It is "mean sea level above the Baltic Sea", in meters (source on page 109).
That explains why it is used mainly in East-European countries.
Martin Ekman - The Changing Level of the Baltic Sea ...
- 2,679
10
votes
Accepted
Esker vs. Kame vs. Drumlin - what's the difference?
Eskers are glaciofluvial deposits from sediment carrying subglacial tunnels. As the water emerges from a tunnel at the bed of an ice sheet or glacier it will slow down. Since the sediment movement ...
- 5,014
8
votes
Accepted
What do you call boulders of non sedimentary rock that were lithified into sandstone?
The technical term for a sedimentary rock that has a lithified fine-grained sediment with larger pieces of rocks suspended in it upon lithification is a conglomerate. The fine-grained interstitial ...
- 518
8
votes
Is the term "fertile ash" a misnomer?
'Fertile ash' is not a scientific term, but neither is it a misnomer. Unless the ash is deposited really hot - hot enough for the particles to weld together as 'ignimbrite', then the ash deposit has ...
- 14.2k
8
votes
Accepted
What is Oligo-Miocene radiation?
The ‘Oligo-Miocene’ part
The Oligocene and the Miocene are epochs of geological time. The Oligocene lasted from ~33.9 million years ago to ~23 million years ago; the Miocene followed immediately ...
- 5,431
8
votes
Accepted
"Archaeozoic" vs "Archean"
The Archaen was named by American geologist James Dwight Dana in 1872, to refer to the entire span of time before the Cambrian Period. A synonym was "Azoic" as this period was considered ...
- 3,548
7
votes
Correct phrase for a 'forgetful' natural system?
How would you call a system that displays such 'forgetfulness'?
In one word, dissipative. In multiple words, a system whose autocorrelation function tends to zero as time tends to infinity.
Note ...
- 23.1k
7
votes
Accepted
Confused about whether physical impact is 'erosion'
I'm assuming here that you're asking whether you can apply the term ‘erosion’ to the damage your stone suffered, rather than the damage your floor suffered. In this case, the applicability of the term ...
- 5,431
6
votes
Difference between "Geology" and "Physical(Natural) Geography"?
Physical Geography is a wide area of study - there is many sub-disciplines in this field, such as Biogeography, Climatology, Hydrology, Pedology, Geomorphology (and others as well). Often the scale ...
- 2,633
6
votes
Accepted
How did the terms "acidic" and "basic" come to be associated with $SiO_2$ in igneous rocks?
The idea came from the theory that silicic acid was the chief form of silicon occurring in rocks. Early attempts to classify minerals, placed some mineral specimens in groups based acid-base ...
- 5,959
6
votes
What separates the Karakoram Range, the Hindu Kush, and the Himalayan Range?
The River Indus in Jammu and Kashmir of India and Gilgit-Baltistan under Pakistan control is usually taken as the dividing line between Himalayas and Karakoram.
The River Gilgit, a tributary of the ...
6
votes
Correct phrase for a 'forgetful' natural system?
From physics standpoint I would say that such system is stable. For example think of a ball on a surface. If the ball is initially on the top of a hill a push would move the ball into the slope that ...
- 1,064
6
votes
Accepted
What is this upside-down transparent funnel-shaped item on a weather monitoring station?
The upside down funnel-shaped attachment is used to prevent rain-water getting inside the inlet of instruments which analyse ambient air. Usually, these instruments are air pollution monitoring ...
- 797
6
votes
Accepted
What is it called for the part of a hill where it discontinuously gets steeper?
As far as I am aware there is no single term to describe the sudden change in the gradient of a slope. Personally I would describe it simply as a sudden increase in slope. However there are many words ...
- 106
5
votes
Is the term "fertile ash" a misnomer?
There are actually two slightly different ways to interpret the phrase "fertile ash". Both are valid, and you'd need to look at the context of the phrase to determine exactly which is meant (this is ...
- 5,431
5
votes
Accepted
What is the name for the forested areas in mountains below the treeline?
Forests directly below the alpine tree line are high-elevation or Montane forests. See more about Montane ecology here.
Image from http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/global-treeline-...
- 13.5k
5
votes
Accepted
If rocks are stones, what type of rock are gallstones?
The nature of this question is more about biological chemistry than it is about earth science. This is because gall stones have nothing to do with geology, but chemical processes in the body.
...
- 24.6k
5
votes
Accepted
Is the atmosphere a part of Earth?
It's all in how one chooses to define it M.Connor.
Often in physical science courses, we define the Earth system as the lithosphere (rocks), atmosphere (air), biosphere (life), and hydrosphere (water)...
- 8,713
5
votes
Accepted
Which particles are classified as PM2.5? How exactly is this defined?
I think answering your questions in reverse will make more sense. The "size" of PM is typically the aerodynamic/inertial impaction size, as you guessed. My standard reference for this is this paper. ...
- 1,381
4
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between climate change and global warming?
Note: As the OP, it's not quite fair to say this is "my" answer, but a synthesis of the many comments provided. -- Thank you.
Question Restatement:
Given the many representations of "Global ...
- 239
4
votes
Water levels: What does "mBf" mean?
mBf refers to the Baltic sea level, which differs from sea level elsewhere in the world for two reasons. Firstly, the Baltic is less saline, and hence less dense, than the North Sea and Atlantic, to ...
- 14.2k
4
votes
Does this optical phenomenon have a name?
It appears from your picture that there is some mist above the lake surface. The phenomenon will be due to the same mechanism that causes conventional rainbows. The angles between the sun, the mist/...
- 4,429
4
votes
Accepted
In hydrology, what's the difference between specific and total catchment area?
I will try to bring you some insights. In my opinion, SCA is poorly named.
Actually, the width is not involved in the catchment area which is given by TCA. SCA introduces a diffusive flow factor by ...
- 238
4
votes
Difference between "Geology" and "Physical(Natural) Geography"?
There is overlap of course, but >90% of most geology courses deal with topics which don't come into physical geography, such as geochemistry, geophysics, petrology and mineralogy, hydrogeology, ...
- 14.2k
4
votes
What is meant by controlling and reacting factor?
A controlling factor is a factor that acts as a cause for others. A reactive factor is rather the consequence: that which reacts to the controlling factor.
For example, the Sun is certainly a ...
- 11.6k
4
votes
Accepted
Why are geologists and geographers not specialists in one of the branches of Earth science?
Geographers may or may not be Earth Scientists. It is a broad field and includes human geography, cultural geography, economic geography, transportation geography, and other sub-disciplines that are ...
- 4,429
4
votes
What is a breadboard (retrieval) algorithm in the context of geophysical satellite retrievals/remote sensing?
When determining the retrieval algorithm for a spectrometer that will be built, it is first done on highly mathematical software platforms. The software allows to the best curve approximation fitting ...
- 13.5k
4
votes
What is a "show" in petroleum geology?
A show is a visual indication of hydrocarbons, in the jargon of petroleum exploration, it is typically used to describe a drilling. It could be e.g. a Gas show in the drilling fluid. Show evaluation ...
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4
votes
Correct phrase for a 'forgetful' natural system?
Terms that come to mind are self or continuously or automatically:
restoring
replenishing
renewing
regenerating
repairing
healing
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible