The difference between global warming and climate change
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By Ama Lorenz
‘Global warming’ and ‘climate change’ are terms that we’ve become accustomed to hearing in recent years. In fact, a simple Google search returns over one billion combined results, proving that phrases that 30 years ago were virtually unknown have now become ingrained into the English language.
However, global warming and climate change are phrases that are often confused, misunderstood or even used interchangeably. In summary, global warming describes the increase in the surface temperature across the planet, predominantly the result of high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is only one aspect of climate change, which is the long-term changes in regional or global climate, especially rainfall, wind and temperature.
Since the two processes are linked, and one is even the result of the other, it’s unsurprising that people often fail to understand the difference between climate change and global warming.
Global warming
The term global warming first becam...
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