Glossary and abbreviations - Climate Change: Biological and Human Aspects - page 538

KPIA Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act (Canada)

kya thousands of years ago

LAA leaf area analysis (used to approximate rainfall)

LGM last glacial maximum (approximately 20 000 years ago)

LMA leaf margin analysis (used to approximate temperature)

MAFF (former) UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now part

of DEFRA)

MAR mass accumulation rate

MCA medieval climatic anomaly (also known as the medieval warm period)

MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MOC meridional overturning circulation

MONARCH Modelling Natural Resource Responses to Climate Change

MPT Mid-Pleistocene Transition

mtDNA mitochondrial DNA

= = ×

10 15

= =

mtoe million tonnes of oil equivalent ( 42 PJ 42 J 12 TWh

12 × 10 12 Wh; excluding station efficiency factors)

MWP medieval warm period (also known as the medieval climatic anomaly)

mya millions of years ago

NAO North Atlantic Oscillation

NERC UK Natural Environment Research Council

NFFO Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation

NOAA US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

O oxygen

16 O

The most common form (isotope) of oxygen with an atomic weight
of 16.

18 O

Rarer and heavier isotope of oxygen.

OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Austria,

Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Republic of Ireland, Italy,
Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Turkey, UK and USA)

OPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Iran, Iraq,

Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Libya,
Nigeria, Indonesia and Venezuela)

PETM Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (also known as the IETM)

PMP possible maximum precipitation

ppb parts per billion

ppbv parts per billion by volume

ppm parts per million

ppmv parts per million by volume

ppt parts per trillion

r / p ratio (fossil fuel) reserve/production ratio

Si silicon

SO Stationery Office (formerly HMSO)

SRES IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios