EARTHSC 2GG3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Natural Disaster, Natural Hazard, Unit
30 Mar 2016
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Document Summary
Natural hazard: natural process which poses threat to human life or property. Natural disaster: natural event that causes signiicant damage to life or property. Catastrophe: natural event that kills/injures large numbers of people or major property damage. More deaths result from loods and droughts. The magnitude (size) of an event is inversely proporional to its frequency. There are numerous small events, fewer large events and a giant event is rare. A forecast is the probability that a natural event of a paricular magnitude will happen within a certain recurrence interval or frequency, on average. The chance of 50-year lood is 1 in 50, every year, even if a 50-year lood occurred last year. Some events are direct consequence of other events. The posiive feedback efect: global warming causes meling of arcic sea ice, darker ocean water absorbs more solar radiaion than white ice, which causes more meling of ice.
