The following variables are set by gnome-terminal:
TERM
This variable is set to "xterm" by default. Some curses implementations and applications based on curses might want the value to be xterm-color, color-xterm or xterm-debian to support color. You might need to change this setting if your application does not display in color to one of those values.
COLORTERM
This variable is set to "xterm". Various applications (specially the Slang-based applications) use this setting to determine if the terminal supports color.
WINDOWID
This variable contains the X11 Window identifier. This is used sometimes by applications to modify the contents of this window or provide special effects.