What is climate change?

Today, climate change has become such a buzzword that people in all walks of life are using it. Most everyone who talks about has some vague idea that climate change is something quite worrisome, but only a few know what exactly it means.

So, what indeed does Climate Change really mean?

Before we talk about climate change, let us get the basics cleared: What is Climate?

We talk of the term Climate in a loose manner to mean all sorts of things. Well, interestingly, we are right in that – climate indeed is a collection of all sorts of things!

Yes. Climate technically refers to a composite of weather conditions, which includes temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds.

The Climate Change we keep hearing about everywhere hence relates to changes in some or all of these. However, the change being referred to is not measured for a short duration, but over an extended period of time – we are talking about changes over decades, centuries or even longer periods!

So, when we talk about climate change, we are talking about a situation where long-term climate patterns are altered.

Which is why climate change should be of concern to all of us: Because we are talking about changes to a number of climate related aspects (temperature only being one of them), and we are talking about long term changes in these. Such long term changes have the potential to result in long lasting, harmful effects to earth and its inhabitants.