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What is climate change? A definition from the Department of Ecology of Washington State reads: Climate includes patterns of temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind and seasons. It affects more than just a change in the weather and refers to seasonal changes over a long period of time. These climate patterns play a fundamental role in shaping natural ecosystems, and the human economies and cultures that depend on them.

It may be used inter-changably with global warming as they’re closely related. Global warming causes climates to change. Here is NASA discussion on the two terms, What's In A Name?

We recommend you listen and learn which is the best advice we can give to begin to understand the challenges before us.

Curated by mokiethecat

NASA | Ask a Climate Scientist: Global Warming Pause? Josh Willis

Is there a pause in global warming?

This question was posed to Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Josh Willis as part of NASA's Ask A Climate Scientist campaign.

Josh gets asked a lot if there has been a pause in global warming, because temperatures aren't increasing as fast as they were a decade ago. No, he says, global warming is definitely still increasing (http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicator...). We see more heat being trapped in the oceans, and sea levels are rising. Look at the sea level record for the last decade (http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicator...). It's going up like gangbusters, hasn't slowed down.

There's not really a pause in global warming. Sometimes there's natural fluctuations and we warm up a little faster in one decade and a little slower in another decade, but global warming, human-caused climate change? Josh says, "that's definitely going right on up in there. We haven't slowed down at all."

See more of NASA's answers to your questions on climate science (http://bit.ly/1b7rSdL).

 

EarthSayer Josh Willis

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