Terminology

The most general definition of climate change is a change in the statistical properties (principally
its mean and spread)[2] of the climate system when considered over long periods of time, regardless of
cause.[3] Accordingly, fluctuations over periods shorter than a few decades, such as El Niño, do not represent
climate change.
The term "climate change" is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change (also known
as global warming). Anthropogenic climate change is caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in
climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes.[4] In this sense, especially in the context
of environmental policy, the term climate change has become synonymous with anthropogenic global warming.
Within scientific journals, global warming refers to surface temperature increases while climate change includes
global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas levels affect.[5]
A related term, "climatic change", was proposed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1966 to
encompass all forms of climatic variability on time-scales longer than 10 years, but regardless of cause. During
the 1970s, the term climate change replaced climatic change to focus on anthropogenic causes, as it became
clear that human activities had a potential to drastically alter the climate.[6] Climate change was incorporated in
the title of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC). Climate change is now used as both a technical description of the process, as
well as a noun used to describe the problem.[6]

Causes
See also: Attribution of recent climate change
On the broadest scale, the rate at which energy is received from the Sun and the rate at which it is lost to
space determine the equilibrium temperature and climate of Earth. This energy is distributed around the globe
by winds, ocean currents, and other mechanisms to affect the climates of different regions.
Factors that can shape climate are called climate forcings or "forcing mechanisms".[7] These include processes
such as variations in solar radiation, variations in the Earth's orbit, variations in the albedo or reflectivity of the
continents, atmosphere, and oceans, mountain-building and continental drift and changes in greenhouse
gas concentrations. There are a variety of climate change feedbacks that can either amplify or diminish the
initial forcing. Some parts of the climate system, such as the oceans and ice caps, respond more slowly in
reaction to climate forcings, while others respond more quickly. There are also key threshold factors which
when exceeded can produce rapid change.
Forcing mechanisms can be either "internal" or "external". Internal forcing mechanisms are natural processes
within the climate system itself (e.g., the thermohaline circulation). External forcing mechanisms can be either
natural (e.g., changes in solar output, the earth's orbit, volcano eruptions) or anthropogenic (e.g. increased
emissions of greenhouse gases and dust).
Whether the initial forcing mechanism is internal or external, the response of the climate system might be fast
(e.g., a sudden cooling due to airborne volcanic ash reflecting sunlight), slow (e.g. thermal expansion of
warming ocean water), or a combination (e.g., sudden loss of albedo in the Arctic Ocean as sea ice melts,
followed by more gradual thermal expansion of the water). Therefore, the climate system can respond abruptly,
but the full response to forcing mechanisms might not be fully developed for centuries or even longer.

Internal forcing mechanisms

Scientists generally define the five components of earth's climate system to
include atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere (restricted to the surface soils, rocks, and
sediments), and biosphere.[8] Natural changes in the climate system ("internal forcings") result in internal
"climate variability".[9] Examples include the type and distribution of species, and changes in ocean-atmosphere
circulations.
Ocean-atmosphere variability
Main article: Thermohaline circulation
See also: Climate inertia
Pacific decadal oscillation 1925 to 2010

The ocean and atmosphere can work together to spontaneously generate internal climate variability that can
persist for years to decades at a time.[10][11] Examples of this type of variability include the El Niño-Southern
Oscillation, the Pacific decadal oscillation, and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. These variations can affect
global average surface temperature by redistributing heat between the deep ocean and the
atmosphere[12][13] and/or by altering the cloud/water vapor/sea ice distribution which can affect the total energy
budget of the earth.[14][15]
The oceanic aspects of these circulations can generate variability on centennial timescales due to the ocean
having hundreds of times more mass than in the atmosphere, and thus very high thermal inertia. For example,
alterations to ocean processes such as thermohaline circulation play a key role in redistributing heat in the
world's oceans. Due to the long timescales of this circulation, ocean temperature at depth is still adjusting to
effects of the Little Ice Age[16] which occurred between the 1600 and 1800s.

A schematic of modern thermohaline circulation. Tens of millions of years ago, continental-plate movement formed a land-
free gap around Antarctica, allowing the formation of the ACC, which keeps warm waters away from Antarctica.

Life
Life affects climate through its role in the carbon and water cycles and through such mechanisms
as albedo, evapotranspiration, cloud formation, and weathering.[17][18][19] Examples of how life may have affected
past climate include:

• glaciation 2.3 billion years ago triggered by the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis, which depleted the
atmosphere of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and introduced free oxygen.[20][21]
• another glaciation 300 million years ago ushered in by long-term burial of decomposition-
resistant detritus of vascular land-plants (creating a carbon sink and forming coal)[22][23]
• termination of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago by flourishing
marine phytoplankton[24][25]
• reversal of global warming 49 million years ago by 800,000 years of arctic azolla blooms[26][27]
• global cooling over the past 40 million years driven by the expansion of grass-grazer ecosystems[28][29]

External forcing mechanisms

Milankovitch cycles from 800,000 years ago in the past to 800,000 years in the future.

Variations in CO2, temperature and dust from the Vostok ice core over the last 450,000 years

Orbital variations
Main article: Milankovitch cycles
Slight variations in Earth's motion lead to changes in the seasonal distribution of sunlight reaching the Earth's
surface and how it is distributed across the globe. There is very little change to the area
area-averaged
averaged annually
averaged sunshine;
nshine; but there can be strong changes in the geographical and seasonal distribution. The three
types of kinematic change are variations in Earth's eccentricity, changes in the tilt angle of Earth's axis of
rotation, and precession of Earth's axis. Combined together, these produce Milankovitch cycles which have an
correlation to glacial and interglacial periods,[30] their correlation with
impact on climate and are notable for their corr
Sahara,[30] and for their appearance in the stratigraphic record.
the advance and retreat of the Sahara record [31][32]
The IPCC notes that Milankovitch cycles drove the ice age cycles, CO2 followed temperature change "with a
feedback amplified temperature change.[33] The depths of the
lag of some hundreds of years", and that as a feedb
ocean have a lag time in changing temperature ((thermal inertiaon
on such scale). Upon seawater temperature
change, the solubility of CO2 in the oceans changed, as well as other factors impacting air
air-sea
sea
CO2 exchange.[34]
Solar output
Main article: Solar variation
Further information: Cosmic ray § Postulated role in climate change
Variations in solar activity during the last several centuries based on observations of sunspots and berylliumisotopes.
beryllium The
period of extraordinarily few sunspots in the late 17th century was the Maunder minimum.

The Sun is the predominant source of energy input to the Earth. Other sources include geothermal energy from
the Earth's core, tidal energy from the Moon and heat from the decay of radioactive compounds. Both long-
long and
short-term
term variations in solar intensity are known to affect global climate.
Three to four billion years ago,, the Sun emitted only 75% as much power as it does today.[35] If the atmospheric
composition had been the same as today, liquid water should not have existed on Earth. However, there is
evidence for the presence of water on the early Earth, in the Hadean[36][37] and Archean[38][36] eons, leading to
paradox.[39] Hypothesized solutions to this paradox include a vastly
what is known as the faint young Sun paradox
different atmosphere, with much higher concentrations of greenhouse gases than currently exist.[40] Over the
following
owing approximately 4 billion years, the energy output of the Sun increased and atmospheric composition
changed. The Great Oxygenation Event – oxygenation of the atmosphere around 2.4 billion years ago – was
the most notable alteration. Over the next five billion years from the present, the Sun's ultimate death as it
becomes a red giant and then a white dwarf will have large effects on climate, with the red giant phase possibly
ending any life on Earth that survives until that time.[41]

Solar activity events recorded in radiocarbon. Values since 1950 not shown.

Solar output varies on shorter time scales, including the 1111-year solar cycle[42] and longer-
[43]
term modulations. Solar intensity variations, possibly as a result of the Wolf, Spörer,, and the Maunder
Minima,, are considered to have been influential in triggering the Little Ice Age.[44]This event extended from 1550
to 1850 A.D. and was marked by relative cooling and greater gla glacier
cier extent than the centuries before and
afterward.[45][46] Solar variation
tion may also have impacted some of the warming observed from 1900 to 1950. The
cyclical nature of the Sun's energy output is not yet fully understood; it differs from the very slow change that is
happening within the Sun as it ages and evolves.
Some studies
es point toward solar radiation increases from cyclical sunspot activity affecting global warming, and
forcings etc.).[47][48]
climate may be influenced by the sum of all effects (solar variation, anthropogenic radiative forcings,
A 2010 study[49] suggests "that the effects of solar variability on temperature throughout the atmosphere may be
contrary to current expectations."
In 2011, CERN announced the initial results from its CLOUD experiment in the Nature journal.[50] The results
indicate that ionisation from cosmic rays significantly enhances aerosol formation in the presence of sulfuric
acid and water, but in the lower atmosphere where ammonia is also required, this is insufficient to account for
aerosol formation and additional trace vapours must be involved. The next step is to find more about these
trace vapours, including whether they are of natural or human origin.
Volcanism

In atmospheric temperature from 1979 to 2010, determined by MSUNASA satellites, effects appear from aerosols released
by major volcanic eruptions (El Chichón and Pinatubo). El Niño is a separate event, from ocean variability.

The eruptions considered to be large enough to affect the Earth's climate on a scale of more than 1 year are
the ones that inject over 100,000 tons of SO2 into the stratosphere.[51] This is due to the optical properties of
SO2 and sulfate aerosols, which strongly absorb or scatter solar radiation, creating a global layer of sulfuric
acid haze.[52] On average, such eruptions occur several times per century, and cause cooling (by partially
blocking the transmission of solar radiation to the Earth's surface) for a period of a few years.
The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century, affected the
climate substantially, subsequently global temperatures decreased by about 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) for up to three
years.[53][54] Thus, the cooling over large parts of the Earth reduced surface temperatures in 1991–93, the
equivalent to a reduction in net radiation of 4 watts per square meter.[55] The Mount Tambora eruption in 1815
caused the Year Without a Summer.[56] Much larger eruptions, known as large igneous provinces, occur only a
few times every fifty – one hundred million years – through flood basalt, and caused in Earth past global
warming and mass extinctions.[57]
Small eruptions, with injections of less than 0.1 Mt of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, impact the
atmosphere only subtly, as temperature changes are comparable with natural variability. However, because
smaller eruptions occur at a much higher frequency, they too have a significant impact on Earth's
atmosphere.[51][58]