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How is global warming different from climate change?

Today, few people doubt thatthe rapid climate change is due to human fault. Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, heat waves that sweep across Europe every year, and an increase in extreme weather events are just a few of the impacts of global warming. Or climate change? Which term is ultimately correct? If you look at this question from the point of view of scientists, it turns out that global warming describes the increase in average surface temperature that we observe as a result of human emissions of greenhouse gases. Thus, when talking about changes in surface temperature, researchers are talking about "global warming". But, as we know today, a rise in temperatures due to a rapidly changing climate is not enough. Still, one should not assume that the increasingly common term "climate change" means that global warming does not exist: both climate change and global warming are realities.

Human activities are not the only factor influencing the Earth's climate.

Difference between global warming and climate change

Back in 1896, a Swedish scientist namedSvante Arrhenius concluded that if we double the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the surface temperature would rise by several degrees. The very term "global warming" was first used in 1975 by climatologist Wallace Broker in an article for Science magazine entitled "Climate Change: Are We On the Verge of Strong Global Warming?"

Later, in the summer of 1988, the term global begangain popularity. The reason was NASA researcher James Hansen, who told Congress in a highly publicized hearing that "Global warming has reached such a level that we can confidently attribute a causal relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming."

Global warming refers to the observed warming of the planet due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change refers to various long-term changes in the planet's climate.

Melting glaciers and permafrost pose a serious threat to the world's ecosystems.

Interestingly, the term "climate change"dates back to at least 1939. It gained popularity after the publication of a scientific article in 1955 entitled "The Theory of Climate Change Based on Carbon Dioxide" by Gilbert Plass. By 1970, a paper was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences entitled "Carbon dioxide and its role in climate change."

Interesting: The media are reporting a leaked UN report on climate change. What does it say?

In 1988, an advisory body was established fromleading scientists and other climate experts to review the scientific literature every few years. Since then, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has regularly published reports on the state of our planet. Note also that climate change or global climate change is generally considered a "more scientifically accurate term" than global warming.

As experts from NASA explained in 2008,the reason is in part that “Changes in rainfall patterns and sea level are likely to have a much larger impact on humans than just warmer temperatures.”

The consequences of climate change can be truly dire.

Considering all the consequences that scientistsobserved in recent decades (including acidification of ocean waters, increased forest fires, and more intense flooding), climate scientists are likely to favor the term climate change.

Read even more interesting articles about how the climate on our planet is changing and how it threatens, on our channel in Yandex.Zen. There are regular posts that are not on the site!

Consequences of global climate change

The latest news on the consequences of a rapidly changing climate is alas worrying. So, according to the results of a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, more than a third of heat deaths in the world annually occurs directly due to global warming.

The calculation carried out by the authors of the scientific work,showed that this is only a small part of the consequences of rapid climate change - even more people die from other extreme weather events, exacerbated by global warming, such as storms, floods and droughts. And the death toll from the heat will grow exponentially as temperatures rise. Earlier we talked about how heat affects the body, I recommend reading.

In 2019, researchers estimated that nearly 1,500 people died in France alone due to record high temperatures.

See also: Earth receives an unprecedented amount of heat from space

Dozens of researchers who studiedheat deaths in 732 cities around the world from 1991 to 2018, it is estimated that 37% of deaths were caused by higher temperatures as a result of anthropogenic-induced warming. The highest percentage of heat deaths caused by climate change was in South American cities. The researchers also found that in Brazilian São Paulo, the number of heat-related deaths averaged 239 per year.

Climate change, if left unchecked, could ultimately destroy our civilization.

In the course of the study, scientists data on mortality fordecades in 732 cities to plot curves detailing how the mortality rate in each city changes with temperature and how the heat mortality curves vary from city to city.

The researchers then took the observed temperaturesand compared them to 10 computer models simulating a world without climate change. By applying this scientifically accepted methodology to individual thermal mortality curves for 732 cities, the scientists calculated the additional thermal mortality from climate change.

More on climate change: How does climate change affect the human body and health?

“People continue to demand proof thatthat climate change is already affecting our health. The new work directly answers this question using modern epidemiological methods. The amount of data collected by the authors for analysis is impressive, ”said Dr. Jonathan Patz, director of the Institute for Global Health at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the study.

Notably, the new study is one of the first to detail heat-related deaths associated with climate change.