Climate variability and change

Climate variability is fluctuation in climate conditions over time; climate change is a persistent shift in climate averages or patterns, from natural causes or human activity.

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Earth's energy budget: The balance between energy Earth absorbs from sunlight and energy it emits back to space. Changes in this balance alter global temperatures and contribute to long-term climate shifts.
Weather: The state of the atmosphere at a particular place and time, including temperature, precipitation, and wind. Short-lived weather events differ from the persistent patterns meant by climate change.
Joseph Fourier: A French mathematician and physicist who described how the atmosphere helps keep Earth warm. His early account introduced the physical idea behind atmospheric heat trapping.
Climate attribution: The analysis of how human and natural factors contributed to a climate trend or event. Attribution separates human influence from natural variability in observed changes.
Global warming: The long-term rise in Earth's average surface temperature, primarily caused in the modern era by human greenhouse-gas emissions. It is the temperature component of broader human-driven climate change.
Greenhouse effect: The warming of a planet's surface and lower atmosphere as gases absorb and re-emit infrared radiation. Rising greenhouse-gas concentrations strengthen this heat-trapping process.
Climate: The statistical description of weather conditions and their variability over a region and period. Climate is the broader system whose averages and patterns fluctuate or shift.
Eunice Newton Foote: An American scientist whose 1856 experiments showed that carbon dioxide-rich air warms strongly in sunlight. Her experiment provided an early demonstration of carbon dioxide's warming effect.
Detection and attribution: Statistical methods for identifying climate changes and estimating their causes. These methods test whether observed patterns match expected human and natural influences.
Sea-level rise: The increase in the average height of the ocean surface relative to land. Warming expands seawater and melts land ice, raising global mean sea level.