Definitions

ALBEDO

The amount of the light hitting a surface that’s reflected back, especially the surface of a planet. Light-colored surfaces, like ice, reflect more light back than dark surfaces, like the open ocean.

ARCTIC CIRCLE

An imaginary horizontal line around the Earth above which there’s one full day without daylight in the winter and one full day without night in the summer.

ASSIMILATION

The process where individuals or groups of individuals with different ethnic heritage blend into a dominant culture. This can happen voluntarily or by force.

AXIAL TILT

The angle between a planet's rotational axis and its orbital axis.

BARRIER ISLAND

A long narrow island lying parallel and close to the mainland.

BERING LAND BRIDGE

A piece of land that connected Asia and North America during the last ice age, when sea levels were lower. It’s now mostly submerged between Eastern Russia and Western Alaska.

CARBON

A chemical element that’s one of the basic elements of any living thing.

COLONIZATION

The act or process of sending people to live in and govern another country.

EBULLITION

A boiling or bubbling up of a liquid.

EXECUTIVE ORDER

A signed, written, and published directive from the President of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. They don’t require approval from Congress, and can’t be simply overturned.

FJORD

A long, narrow, deep inlet where the ocean lies between high cliffs.

FSB

The Russian Federal Security Service in charge of internal security and counterintelligence (the letters of the acronym correlate to the Russian name of the organization).

GLACIOLOGIST

Someone who studies glaciers, ice sheets, and other formations of snow and ice.

ICE BREAKER

A ship designed to create channels through sheets of ice to enable.

ICE REGIME

The characteristics of a given area of sea ice, including age and thickness.

MOULIN

A vertical hole in an ice sheet. Moulins carry meltwater into the glacier, sometimes reaching all the way to the bottom, and serve as an ice sheet’s plumbing.

NUTATION

A periodic variation in the axis of a rotating object like a planet.

PALEOCLIMATOLOGIST

Someone who studies the climate systems of the past.

PARADIGM SHIFT

A major change in the way of thinking about something.

PARTS PER MILLION

The unit of measurement for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. If we sampled a big scoop of air, CO2 would make up about 400 parts out of every million parts of the sample.

PERMAFROST

Is any ground that remains completely frozen—32°F (0°C) or colder—for at least two years straight.

SÁMI

Indigenous people of Scandinavia and western Russia.

SEDENTARIZATION

Sometimes also called sedentism, this is the process where a group of people that used to move around throughout the year transition to living permanently in one place. This process is sometimes forced on a people by a government or other powerful force.