why si the term global warming now referred to as climate change?

Question

whats changed

Answer 1

Let's be blunt. The Globe HASN'T "warmed" since 1998. Anyone who tells you different didn't read the news today. 2007 is on track to be the 2nd or 3rd warmest year (that is...COOLER than 1998) since then.

Therefore, "Global Warming" just doesn't work. It ain't. If anything, there's been a DOWNWARD trend over the last 10 years.

"Climate Change" works, though! Climate Change is always happening. That's what Climates do - they CHANGE!

Woo-Hoo!

Answer 2

They (the United States, especially the Bush Administration) and Suadi Arabia have tried to convince the public nothing bad was happening. The name change just waters down the idea, which is that the temperature of the earth is rining, and has been since the industrial revolution. It has risen about 1/2 the amount needed to end life on land, and most life in the sea. You have probably heard of an MRI, a test doctors do? It's called "Magnetic Resonance Imaging". When it first came out it was called "NMR", or "Nuclear Magnetic Resonance", a more accurate description. They changed the name because they thought the word "nuclear" was too scarey, and people wouldn't want the test.

"Climate Change" sounds benign, and touchy feeley. It could mean we're going to have a wet summer, or an early ski season. It's as if we just don't know so we called it something that would cover all the possibilities. It's ever so much more comforting as something like "baked alive", or anything else more specific and accurate.

Answer 3

Global warming and climate change have always been two separate things it's just that the media, fopr whatever reason, preferred to use the term 'global warming'.

Global warming is the process by which the planet is warming up whereas climate change describes how our climate is changing. Global warming is a cause and climate change is an effect.

Any change in the use of terminology is down to the way the media are reporting things.

Answer 4

because it is politically incorrect to say global warming when everywhere isnt warming. parts of antarctica and iceland are actually cooling (which just throws fuel on the non-believers arguement). Climate change is a better term all around because it is exactly true. The climate is changing differently everywhere....some places are more wet, some mroe dry, some colder, some much hotter, for some hotter is bad, for others hotter is good.


The fact remains that we have grown accustomed to this way of life and where we live. With habitats and ecosystems on the move and essentially a new environment being created who says that humans will be able to survive it in the numbers we see today? We like out climate and our biotic zones (rainforests at the equator & deserts mroe northern etc.) where they are now, so this climate change can be a major problem

Answer 5

Global warming and global climate change are not the same thing.

Global warming is the consistent increase in the average temperature of the planet, as you can see here:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

Global climate change is an effect of global warming. As the planet warms, the climate around the world changes in response.

Sometimes the terms are used interchangeably because by causing global warming we're also causing global climate change. However, they are 2 different effects. If you're going to talk about the human contribution, you should probably talk about global warming, because greenhouse gas emissions cause the greenhouse effect which causes global warming. If you're going to talk about the consequences, you should talk about global climate change, because that will be the visible result of global warming.

Answer 6

Nothing changed. The term 'climate change' has been used to describe global warming for well over fifty years. The term just fell out of use for a while when some scientist (can't remember who) wrote a paper titled 'effects of the global warming' (or something like that), then people started calling it "the global warming", which was later shortened to just "global warming'. The term climate change has just started becoming popular again.

Answer 7

It's a way for the looney left to cover their a s s. It's not warmer everywhere on the planet. Some places are actually getting cooloer. So, the left was caught with their pants down because they keep saying it's getting hotter. So now, this is a very easy way for them to attempt to scare the hell out of all the sheep who won't use their brains and think for themselves. If they now call it climate change, they can say "See, it's getting colder in Florida and hotter in Nevada...so it must be man made climate change. Run for your lives people, the world will end if evil man doesn't stop driving their cars." Bahahahahaha.....too funny. I love watching the left back themselves into a corner.

Answer 8

To soften the blow when they realize that the "global warming" they've been sold is not about the daytime temperatures which show little or no change, but is about an increase in the nighttime temperatures. Or that the man-made contribution to this temperature change is less than half a degree over the last 100 years. Most people wouldn't even know the temperature from yesterday, much less a hundred years ago. And certainly not an imperceivable half degree.

Answer 9

It's also more describing of what's going on. Some parts of the world will cool while others will warm. Weather patterns will change, drought, rains, storms, precipitation will be effected. The term climate change includes all this in a way that global warming necessarily doesn't.

Answer 10

Nothing changed. Global warming simply refers to a rise in the average temperature worldwide. Climate change is not the same thing--it refers to the effects of global warming--for example changes in rainfall patterns, etc.

And its not a matter of this being new--the term has been in use for decades among scientists and environmentalists.