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Uncertainty over feedbacks, particularly cloud cover, [86] is the major reason why different climate models project different magnitudes of warming for a given amount of emissions. [87] As air warms, it can hold more moisture .
Climate change can also be used more broadly to include changes to the climate that have happened throughout Earth's history. [32] Global warming—used as early as 1975 [33] —became the more popular term after NASA climate scientist James Hansen used it in his 1988 testimony in the U.S. Senate. [34] Since the 2000s, climate change has ...
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. [5] Climate change was incorporated in the title of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ...
The five components of the climate system all interact. They are the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere. [1]: 1451 Earth's climate system is a complex system with five interacting components: the atmosphere (air), the hydrosphere (water), the cryosphere (ice and permafrost), the lithosphere (earth's upper rocky layer) and the biosphere (living things).
The main topics of research are the study of climate variability, mechanisms of climate changes and modern climate change. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] This topic of study is regarded as part of the atmospheric sciences and a subdivision of physical geography , which is one of the Earth sciences .
Climate sensitivity is the change in surface air temperature per unit change in radiative forcing, and the climate sensitivity parameter [note 3] is therefore expressed in units of °C/(W/m 2). Climate sensitivity is approximately the same whatever the reason for the radiative forcing (such as from greenhouse gases or solar variation ). [ 26 ]
In 2022, the state was experiencing its most serious drought in 1,200 years, worsened by climate change. [31] Climate change affects many factors associated with droughts. These include how much rain falls and how fast the rain evaporates again. Warming over land increases the severity and frequency of droughts around much of the world.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had been formed by the United Nations in 1988, [29] [30] and it presents reports summarizing the strength and extent of consensus on climate change and its numerous aspects to the member states of the United Nations, with the major reports released at 5-to-7-year intervals starting from 1990.