Climate change
CLIMATE CHANGE A long-term shift in the typical weather patterns that have come to characterize local, regional, and global climates on Earth is referred to as climate change. The phrase is synonymous with a wide variety of observed outcomes resulting from these changes. Since the middle of the 20th century, human activity has been responsible for changes in Earth's climate. Burning fossil fuels, in particular, has increased the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which has raised the planet's average surface temperature. Natural processes, overshadowed by human activity, can also cause climate change. These include external forcings like volcanic activity, variations in Earth's orbit, and changes in the Sun's energy output, as well as internal variability like cyclical ocean patterns like El Niño, La Niña, and the Pacific Decadal O...