Global Warming Word Search

Greenhouse gases, where emissions come from, what warming does to ice and seas, and the ways to slow it.

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OTGLOBALWARMING

CARBONDIOXIDELL

EEEUDEMISSIONSI

AMEHENHHEATWAVE

NRNLFOSSILFUELD

SMHMOATMOSPHERE

ERODROUGHTEOBEZ

AEUMETHANERTRRI

LNSCSHVCLIMATEC

EEEUTEMPERATURE

VWGLACIERKFEOAS

EAAMTFGOTKRHTOH

LBSSIBINLDODTFE

XLUNOMCOALSOSFE

SEAINLOARCTICAT

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

Greenhouse gasGREENHOUSE GAS
Carbon dioxideCARBON DIOXIDE
MethaneMETHANE
AtmosphereATMOSPHERE
EmissionsEMISSIONS
Fossil fuelFOSSIL FUEL
CoalCOAL
DeforestationDEFORESTATION
Sea levelSEA LEVEL
GlacierGLACIER
Ice sheetICE SHEET
PermafrostPERMAFROST
Heat waveHEAT WAVE
DroughtDROUGHT
ArcticARCTIC
OceanOCEAN
Global warmingGLOBAL WARMING
ClimateCLIMATE
TemperatureTEMPERATURE
RenewableRENEWABLE

20 words from the Global Warming Key Terms list.

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Answer key: Global Warming Word Search

OTGLOBALWARMING

CARBONDIOXIDELL

EEEUDEMISSIONSI

AMEHENHHEATWAVE

NRNLFOSSILFUELD

SMHMOATMOSPHERE

ERODROUGHTEOBEZ

AEUMETHANERTRRI

LNSCSHVCLIMATEC

EEEUTEMPERATURE

VWGLACIERKFEOAS

EAAMTFGOTKRHTOH

LBSSIBINLDODTFE

XLUNOMCOALSOSFE

SEAINLOARCTICAT

GREENHOUSE GAS, CARBON DIOXIDE, METHANE, ATMOSPHERE, EMISSIONS, FOSSIL FUEL, COAL, DEFORESTATION, SEA LEVEL, GLACIER, ICE SHEET, PERMAFROST, HEAT WAVE, DROUGHT, ARCTIC, OCEAN, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE, TEMPERATURE, RENEWABLE

Next step Type in the terms from your own climate unit Scramble the same global warming words

All 126 words

Greenhouse Effect 22

Absorb To take in, as the ground takes in light and the sea takes in extra heat.
Albedo The share of incoming light that a body sends back, on a scale from 0 to 1.
Atmosphere The envelope of gases around Earth, where heat-trapping gases build up.
Balance What Earth's energy is in when the light coming in equals the heat going out.
Blanket A cover that keeps warmth in; an old picture for what the air does for the planet.
Carbon dioxide The main heat-trapping gas that people add to the air; its formula is CO2.
Cloud A visible mass of tiny water drops or ice crystals; it holds in some of Earth's heat.
Concentration How much of a gas is in the air, often counted in parts per million.
Escape To get away, as heat does when it leaves the top of the air for space.
Feedback A process that strengthens or weakens a change, as warming adds vapor that warms more.
Fluorinated Describes factory-made gases, used in refrigeration and air conditioning, that warm strongly.
Greenhouse gas Part of the air that soaks up warmth leaving Earth and slows its loss to space.

Show all 126 words (114 more)

Greenhouse Effect, continued

Infrared Invisible light with waves longer than red; the warmed ground gives it off as heat.
Methane The main part of natural gas; livestock, rice farming and landfills give it off too.
Molecule Two or more atoms joined together; one of CO2 has a carbon atom and two oxygen atoms.
Nitrous oxide A heat-trapping gas that comes largely from fertilizer used on farms.
Radiation Energy that travels as waves or particles, like the light arriving from the Sun.
Reflect To bounce back, as ice and snow do with much of the light that hits them.
Sunlight Light from the Sun; about half of what reaches Earth's air passes through to the ground.
Surface The top of the land and sea, where incoming light turns into heat.
Trap To catch and hold, as certain gases do with heat that would otherwise leave for space.
Water vapor The most abundant heat-trapping gas; its amount in the air grows as oceans warm.

Where Emissions Come From 24

Aviation The flying of aircraft.
Burning Joining carbon in a fuel with oxygen from the air, which makes heat and CO2.
Cattle Cows and bulls kept on farms and ranches.
Cement The binder in concrete; the chemical reaction that makes it releases CO2.
Coal A black or brownish-black rock, mostly carbon, that is dug up for fuel.
Crude oil Petroleum as it comes out of the ground, before it is refined.
Deforestation Clearing woodland for another use; the lost trees release CO2 and soak up no more.
Electricity The energy that runs lights and machines; generating it uses up a great deal of fuel.
Emissions Gases that human activity lets out into the air.
Exhaust The waste gases that leave an engine as it runs.
Factory A site with machinery where workers make goods.
Fossil fuel A burnable material formed underground over ages from the remains of long-dead organisms.
Gasoline The liquid fuel most car engines run on, made from petroleum.
Heating Warming homes and buildings, one of the main things fuel is used for.
Industry The making of goods such as metals and chemicals on a large scale.
Leak An unwanted escape, as of methane from wells and pipes; a major source of that gas.
Livestock Animals raised on farms; their digestion and dung give off methane.
Manure Animal dung, a source of methane on farms.
Natural gas An underground fuel that is mostly methane, piped to stoves and furnaces.
Power plant An industrial site that generates electric current for a region.
Rice A grain crop grown in paddies, a significant farm source of methane.
Steel A strong alloy of iron and carbon; making it releases CO2.
Tailpipe The tube at the back of a car where its waste gases come out.
Transport Carrying people and goods by road, rail, sea and air.

Effects of Global Warming 27

Acidification The drop in the pH of seawater as it takes up CO2 from the air.
Arctic The region around the North Pole, warming several times faster than the world as a whole.
Coast The land along the edge of the sea.
Coral Tiny sea animals that build reefs; water that is too warm turns them white.
Crops Plants grown for food; some kinds are bred to stand dry weather.
Drought A long dry spell with far less rain or snow than usual; it can last months or years.
Flood An overflow of water onto land that is usually dry.
Glacier A body of land ice that moves under its own weight; they are shrinking almost everywhere.
Greenland A huge northern island whose thick frozen cover is losing mass.
Heat wave A run of days much hotter than usual for the place and the season.
Hurricane A powerful spinning tropical system; its rain and wind are projected to grow with warming.
Ice sheet Frozen cover over more than 50,000 square kilometers of land; Earth has two today.
Iceberg A chunk of freshwater ice adrift at sea after breaking off the land or an ice shelf.
Melt To change from solid to liquid, as land ice does when the air warms.
Migration The movement of animals or people to live somewhere else.
Ocean Earth's great body of salt water; it stores about 90% of the extra heat.
Permafrost Ground that stays below freezing for two years or more; a thaw frees gases locked in it.
Rainfall The amount of rain that comes down on a place.
Retreat To shrink back, as the lower end of a mountain ice stream does over warm decades.
Rise To go up, as the seas and the world's average temperature are doing.
Sea ice Frozen salt water that floats; the cover in the far north has declined rapidly.
Sea level The height of the world's salt water against the land; it climbs as land ice thaws and water warms.
Snowpack Snow that builds up on high ground and feeds streams and rivers when it thaws.
Species One kind of living thing; thousands of animal kinds are moving to cooler areas.
Storm Violent weather with strong wind and heavy rain or snow.
Tipping point A threshold that, once crossed, brings large changes that are often impossible to undo.
Wildfire An unplanned, uncontrolled fire spreading through forest, brush or grass.

Climate Science 28

Anomaly The difference between a reading and a long-term reference value.
Antarctica The continent at the South Pole, 98% covered by the largest mass of ice on Earth.
Average The typical value: add the measurements, then divide by how many there are.
Balloon A gas-filled bag that lifts instruments high into the air to take readings.
Buoy A floating platform of instruments that records conditions at sea.
Celsius The scale on which water freezes at 0 and boils at 100.
Century One hundred years.
Climate The usual pattern of rain, wind and warmth in a place, taken over about 30 years.
Decade Ten years; the pace of warming is often given for each one.
Degree One unit on a scale of hot and cold.
Evidence Facts and measurements that show whether an idea is true.
Fahrenheit The scale that puts water's freezing point at 32 and its boiling point at 212.
Gauge A measuring device; the tide kind records the height of the sea.
Global warming The long-term rise in how hot Earth's surface is overall, driven by human activity.
Graph A picture of numbers, such as a line showing readings year by year.
Ice core A long cylinder drilled out of a glacier; its layers hold air from long ago.
Model A computer program that simulates air, oceans, land and ice to project what comes next.
Preindustrial Describes the time before factories spread; 1850 to 1900 serves as the starting line.
Projection An estimate of the future worked out from a set of assumptions.
Proxy A natural record, such as a coral or a layer of sea mud, that stands in for old readings.
Satellite A craft in orbit; some track sea height, ice cover and heat from above.
Scenario One possible future, such as high or low output of heat-trapping gases, used in a study.
Scientist A person who studies nature by observing, measuring and testing.
Temperature A measure of how hot or cold something is.
Thermometer An instrument that shows how hot or cold the air, the sea or anything else is.
Tree ring A yearly growth band in wood; a wide one marks a good growing year.
Trend The general direction of a set of measurements over many years.
Weather What the air is doing at one place and time: rain, wind, cloud, heat or cold.

Slowing Global Warming 25

Adaptation Adjusting to the effects of a changing climate, both those here and those expected.
Capture To separate CO2 at an industrial site before it reaches the air.
Carbon sink A forest or sea that takes more CO2 out of the air than it gives back.
Electric car A vehicle driven by energy stored in a battery pack and charged from a plug.
Footprint The carbon kind is the total of heat-trapping gases an activity or product adds to the air.
Heat pump A device that moves warmth from one space to another, to warm or cool a building.
Hydropower Energy taken from falling or fast-running water.
Mangrove A woody plant that grows in salty or brackish water along warm shores.
Mitigation Action to limit the heat-trapping gases in the air.
Net zero The point where the heat-trapping gases people add and the amount they remove are equal.
Nuclear Describes electricity made by splitting atoms instead of burning fuel.
Offset A cut in heat-trapping gases made in one place to make up for those released in another.
Paris Agreement The 2015 climate accord in which nations agreed to hold warming well under 2 degrees Celsius.
Pledge A promise, such as a country's stated goal for cutting its heat-trapping gases.
Reforestation Restoring woodland that was cut down or burned.
Renewable Describes energy from sources that nature refills, such as wind and sunlight.
Seawall A barrier built along a shore to protect the land behind it from waves and high water.
Soil The mix of minerals and once-living matter that plants grow in; farming can store carbon in it.
Solar power Electricity made from sunlight, usually by panels.
Storage Keeping CO2 locked away for a long time, typically in rock deep underground.
Transit Shared travel for the public, such as buses and trains on fixed routes.
Treaty A formal pact between countries under international law.
Tree A tall plant with a trunk; it takes CO2 from the air as it grows.
Turbine A machine with blades that a flow of wind, water or steam spins to make electricity.
Wind farm A group of tall bladed machines making electricity in one place, on land or offshore.

How it works

Greenhouse gas, Carbon dioxide, Emissions, Fossil fuel, Sea level and Glacier are six of the 20 terms on every first grid of this global warming word search. For pollution, landfills and habitats, print the environmental science word search.

Read the full guide

Causes first, then effects

Under Start from a list, Greenhouse Effect has 22 words on how the air holds heat, such as Infrared, Albedo and Feedback. Where Emissions Come From has 24, from Coal and Tailpipe to Cattle, Cement and Leak. Effects of Global Warming has 27: Permafrost, Heat wave, Coral, Tipping point.

Evidence and answers

Climate Science has 28 words for how the warming is measured, among them Ice core, Tree ring, Anomaly and Proxy. Slowing Global Warming has 25, such as Heat pump, Net zero, Mangrove and Seawall, and makes a sheet to close the unit on what can be done.

Greenhouse gas, Carbon dioxide, Sea level and 20 more two-word entries hide closed up: SEALEVEL.

Questions and answers

What is global warming?

It is the long-term heating of Earth's surface, measured from a baseline of 1850 to 1900. NASA gives the cause as human activity, chiefly burning fossil fuels, which adds heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

What is the difference between global warming and climate change?

Global warming is the rise in the planet's temperature alone. Climate change takes in that warming and what follows from it: plants blooming at different times, mountain glaciers shrinking, ice melting faster at both poles and in Greenland, and seas rising.

What is the greenhouse effect?

Sunlight warms Earth's surface, and the surface gives that energy back off as infrared heat. Greenhouse gases in the air absorb most of the heat and send it out again in every direction, which slows its loss to space.

What are the main greenhouse gases?

NASA names five key ones: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons and water vapor. Carbon dioxide is the main gas behind the warming. Water vapor is the most abundant, but its amount follows the temperature and does not set it.

Does the global warming word search come with an answer key?

Yes. Print gives two sheets, Letter or A4: the puzzle and its word list, then the key with every word ringed. Switch on Show clues, not words and Emissions prints as "Gases that human activity lets out into the air."

All 126 words

Greenhouse Effect 22

Greenhouse Effect, continued

Where Emissions Come From 24

Effects of Global Warming 27

Climate Science 28

Slowing Global Warming 25

How it works

Causes first, then effects

Evidence and answers

Questions and answers

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