Climate

Climate is the long-term pattern of atmospheric conditions in a region or across Earth, described through statistics such as averages, variability, and extremes.

Weather: Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a particular time and place. Climate summarizes the long-term patterns formed by changing weather.
Greenhouse effect: Warming of a planet’s surface and lower atmosphere when gases absorb and re-emit outgoing infrared radiation. It explains how atmospheric composition influences Earth’s average temperature.
Köppen climate classification: A system that classifies world climates using temperature, precipitation, and characteristic vegetation. It turns climate statistics into recognizable regional climate types.
Paleoclimatology: The study of climates before direct instrumental records, using geological, biological, and chemical evidence. This field reconstructs the long history behind present climate patterns.
Climate sensitivity: The change in global mean temperature associated with a specified change in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Its estimated range captures uncertainty in the strength of climate response.
Climate normal: A standardized summary of observed climate conditions over a fixed period, commonly 30 years. Climate normals provide a conventional baseline for describing local climate.
Radiative forcing: A change in Earth’s energy balance caused by factors such as greenhouse gases, aerosols, or solar variation. Forcing describes how climate drivers initiate a shift in temperature and other conditions.
Climate change: A persistent change in climate statistics that lasts for decades or longer. Climate change describes sustained shifts in the patterns climate records measure.
Milankovitch cycles: Long-term variations in Earth’s orbit and axial orientation that alter the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of sunlight. These orbital changes pace major glacial and interglacial climate cycles.
Cloud feedback: The change in cloud properties that alters Earth’s energy balance as climate changes. Cloud responses remain a major source of uncertainty in climate sensitivity.

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