New Dictionary Words in 2024: Part 3 Climate, weather, & environment

   Recently, Dictionary Com provided a list of 300 words added to the dictionary for 2024. Today's blog includes a sampling of them from the weather and climate areas.  Words like Superfog and Climate Breakdown.  Here's today's sampling.

(Photo: Super fog forms when a mixture of smoke and moisture released from damp smoldering organic material such as brush, leaves and trees, mixes with cooler, nearly saturated air. Visibility is lowered to less than 10 feet. Under light wind conditions, super fog meanders through low terrain areas such as creek beds or drainage ditches. Super fog can be very dangerous when present over highways, and has been the cause of several large, multi-vehicle pileups. Credit: NOAA/Gary Curcio) 

There’s A Word For That: Our Dictionary Additions For Winter 2024

climate breakdown - noun. the collective effects of harmful and potentially irreversible trends in climate, specifically those resulting from unchecked global warming.

global boiling
 noun. a nonscientific term used to emphasize the trend toward and severity of extreme heat events, especially in regard to public health. 📝 Climate breakdown and global boiling have emerged as terms intended to communicate the severity of the effects of climate change, along with other prominent terms like climate crisis and climate emergency.

extreme heat event
 noun. Meteorology, Climatology. a heat event classified as being excessive enough to pose a serious threat to public health.

fire whirl
 noun. a tornadolike phenomenon created when turbulent air rapidly rising from the site of burning, as in a forest fire, sucks flaming gases, embers, and other fiery debris up into a twisting column, sometimes hundreds of feet in height.

fire tornado
 noun. a flaming tornado generated by intense wildfire, rarer, much larger, and more destructive than a fire whirl.

superfog
 noun. a combination of fog generated by weather conditions and wildfire smoke from damp, smoldering brush, leaves, trees, and other organic materials that often reduces visibility to less than 10 feet.