1. What is Climate Change?

2. Climate change refers to any significant change in the measures of climate lasting for an extended period of time. In other words, climate change includes major changes in temperature, precipitation, or wind patterns, among other effects, that occur over several decades or longer.

3. What is Global Warming?

4. Global warming refers to the recent and ongoing rise in global average temperature near Earth's surface. It is caused mostly by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Global warming is causing climate patterns to change. However, global warming itself represents only one aspect of climate change.

5. Contribution to Global Warming Source: Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Science

7. Atmospheric CO 2 Levels Current level higher than any time in last 800,000 yrs Lüthi et al., 2008. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7193/fig_tab/nature06949_F2.html

8. How do we know this? Greenland ice cores Gas inclusions and isotopic composition of oxygen in H 2 O Photo from: NASA Earth Observatory