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Climate change is the defining issue of our times. Every day, more and more people are getting involved in climate action.

Veterans in the field are already familiar with the many terms and concepts related to climate change. But if you are new to the discussion, it can be quite challenging to grasp everything at once.

That’s why we prepared this resource of climate change terms and concepts. If you’re struggling to keep up with the climate conversation, the Climate Dictionary is for you.

We invite you to read it, bookmark it, make use of it in your climate action work.

And we promise to update it regularly with new terms, so that we can push for collective climate action together.

Weather vs. Climate

Weather refers to atmospheric conditions at a particular time in a particular location, including temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, wind, and visibility. Weather conditions do not happen in isolation, they have a ripple effect. The weather in one region will eventually affect the weather hundreds or thousands of kilometers away.

Climate is the average of weather patterns in a specific area over a longer period of time, usually 30 or more years, that represents the overall state of the climate system.

Human activity in the industrial age, and particularly during the last century, is significantly altering our planet’s climate through the release of harmful greenhouse gases.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Greenhouse gases are gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, causing global warming and climate change. The main greenhouse gases released by human activity are carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, as well as fluorinated gases used for cooling and refrigeration. To prevent catastrophic climate change, the world’s governments must work together to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep global warming below the dangerous threshold of 1.5°C.

Global warming vs. Climate change

Global warming is an increase in the Earth’s average surface temperature that occurs when the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases. These gases absorb more solar radiation and trap more heat, thus causing the planet to get hotter. Burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests, and farming livestock are some human activities that release greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming.

Climate change refers to the long-term changes in the Earth’s climate that are warming the atmosphere, ocean and land. Climate change is affecting the balance of ecosystems that support life and biodiversity, and impacting health. It also causes more extreme weather events, such as more intense and/or frequent hurricanes, floods, heat waves, and droughts, and leads to sea level rise and coastal erosion as a result of ocean warming, melting of glaciers, ad loss of ice sheets.