Anthropogenic climate change

Long-term changes in Earth’s climate caused by human activities, especially greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Greenhouse effect: The warming that occurs when atmospheric gases absorb and re-emit infrared radiation from Earth’s surface. Human emissions strengthen this natural heat-trapping process.
Industrial Revolution: A period of major technological and economic change beginning in Britain in the late eighteenth century. Industrialization accelerated coal combustion and the growth of fossil-fuel emissions.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: A United Nations body that assesses scientific knowledge about climate change, its impacts, and response options. Its assessments synthesize evidence attributing recent warming primarily to human influence.
Sea level rise: A long-term increase in the average level of the world’s oceans. Ocean warming and land-ice loss raise sea levels as the planet warms.
Climate variability: Natural fluctuations in climate over time, arising from internal processes and external natural influences. It can affect temperatures temporarily but does not explain the observed long-term human-driven trend.
Radiative forcing: A change in Earth’s energy balance caused by factors such as greenhouse gases, aerosols, or solar variation. It quantifies how emissions and other influences shift the climate system’s energy balance.
Charles David Keeling: An American scientist whose precise atmospheric measurements revealed rising carbon dioxide concentrations. His measurements documented the continuing atmospheric buildup behind modern warming.
James Hansen: An American climate scientist whose 1988 congressional testimony drew wide attention to global warming. His testimony made the emerging scientific warning a major public and political issue.
Ocean acidification: The decline in ocean pH caused mainly by seawater absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Human carbon dioxide emissions alter the ocean as well as the atmosphere.
Solar irradiance: The power of the Sun’s electromagnetic radiation received per unit area at a given distance. Changes in solar output are a natural influence, but they do not account for recent warming.

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