Global Warming | Renewable Energy | Energy Glossary | Green Living | Green Buildings | Transportation | Geo Engineering

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• Anthropogenic - derived from human activities.
• AR4 4th Assessment Report from IPCC, 2007
• ARB - California Air Resources Board
• bbl - barrel
• CAFE - Corporate Average Fuel Economy
• Carbon sequestration (natural) - the process through which plant life removes CO₂ from the atmosphere and stores it in biomass. See Geologic Sequestration below.
  See Sequestration below.
• CCS - Carbon Capture and Sequestration
• CFC - chlorofluorocarbons
• CNG: Compressed Natural Gas
• CRU - Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia
• EIA - Energy Information Administration
• EPA - Environmental Protection Agency
• DWT - deadweight metric tons (oil tanker capacity)
• ETBE - Ethyl Tertiary Butyl Ether
• GCM - general circulation model
• Geologic sequestration - a chain of activities that result in collection and transport of concentrated CO₂ gas from large emission sources, such as power plants, and subsequent injection into deep underground reservoirs.
• GHG - Greenhouse Gases
• GISS or GISSTEMP - Goddard Institute for Space Studies
• HadCRUT - A data set of surface air temperatures over a global network from the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research at the Met Office (Meteorological Office - UK's National Weather Service)
• IEA - International Energy Agency
• IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• KGOE - Kilograms of oil equivalent
• LPG - Liquefied Petroleum Gas
• MMBbl - Million barrels
• MTBE - Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether
• NAESCO - National Association of Energy Service Providers
• NSSTC - National Space Science and Technology Center - University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH)- National Space Science and Technology Center.
• NESEA - Northeast Sustainable Energy Association
• RF - Radiative forcing - the change in net irradiance (solar plus longwave) at the tropospause. See Greenhouse gases.
• OPEC - Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries
• Sequestration - Capturing CO₂ and putting it somewhere where it won't be released into the atmosphere.
• UNEP - United Nations Environment Programme
• ULCC - Ultra Large Crude Carrier (Supertanker)
• UNFCCC - UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
• VLCC - Very Large Crude Carrier > 200,000 DWT (Supertanker)
• WMO - World Meteorological Organazition

 
Greenhouse gases (GHG) are:
Anthropogenic - Manmade - Primarily burning fossil fuels.
Natural - Methane from bacterial  breakdown of organic matter in wetlands
     Nitrous Oxide is released naturally from oceans and bacteria in soils
     Carbon dioxide (CO2) from decaying trees, forest fires, volcanos, ...
     Water Vapor
     
   They keep the earth about 60° warmer than it woud be otherwise.

Radiative forcing (RF) - the change in net irradiance (solar plus longwave) at the tropospause.
  It is used in formulas to compute temperature change on the ground.
  measured in Watts per square meter (W/m2)
ppm - Parts per million
ppb - Parts per billion
See measurement terms (Btu, Joule, barrels, tonnes, ...) at the statistics page.