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CLIMATE CHANGE |
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HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING TERMS? In order to understand the information you're reading, it is important to first have a firm grasp on the vocabulary being used. Climate change jargon can often be not only confusing but misleading as well. If you find yourself struggling with a certain word or phrase, visit our "Useful Definitions" page and we'll help you figure out what it means! |
First, we must clarify that there is a difference between climate and weather although the two are sometimes used interchangeably. “Climate is the long term trend and weather is the movement around that trend,” explains Middlebury Professor Jon Isham. “So you could say to some Vermonters, ‘climate change can explain why the planting season for corn, say, is two weeks earlier now than it was in the 1960’s whereas weather is the fact that last Valentine’s Day we had a huge blizzard and this Valentine’s Day we didn’t.” That said, climate change is “any long-term significant change in the ‘average weather’ that a given region experiences2.” Climate change does not just lead to a general warming in the Earth’s atmosphere but also creates severe changes in weather patterns including amounts of precipitation and how that precipitation expresses itself. You think that Hurricane Katrina or the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia were flukes or acts of God? Try again. While scientists lack enough conclusive evidence to attribute the previously mentioned intense weather events to climate change, there has been a noticeable increase “in the number of heavy precipitation events over many areas during the past century6.” In other words, climate change confuses the Earth’s weather patterns into producing abnormally high quantities of rain in some areas while creating drought in others. In other cases, an area that would usually be getting snow in January might instead have an unusual amount of rain events. |
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