Page 7 - A Hot Mess: How the Climate Crisis Is Changing Our World

quickly turn to snow if the temperature drops over the course of a
few hours. In a desert like the Sahara in northern Africa, the average
temperature can go from about 100°F (38°C) in the daytime to 25°F
(–4°C) the same night.
Climate, on the other hand, is what the atmosphere is like over
the long term. When you describe what the weather’s normally like
somewhere, you’re really talking about the climate. For example,
Florida has a subtropical climate. The weather is hot there most of
the time and humid during the rainy season. That doesn’t mean it’s
hot every single day of the year; weather can change there just like it
can anywhere else. Southern California has a dry climate, but rain
still falls sometimes. Western Washington state has a wet climate,
but has its share of sunny days. There might be rain in one town
and not in the one right next to it, but both towns probably have a
similar climate.
That might seem like a small point, but it’s an important one.
A warming climate doesn’t mean snow will never occur in colder
places or that every day will be hot. Instead, the planet, as a whole,
will be hotter on an average day than it used to be. This is another
key distinction. When we talk about climate change, we’re talking
about global climate change. Scientists discussing numbers related
to climate change are usually talking about the climate of Earth in
general, rather than a specific part of the planet.
Speaking of global climate change, you may have heard the term
global warming before. When scientists in the 1980s and 1990s
talked about the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
raising Earth’s temperature, they usually used that term to describe
it. “Global warming” is still accurate—after all, the globe is getting
warmer on average. (Richard Betts, a prominent government scientist
in the United Kingdom [UK], has suggested using “global heating”
as a more accurate term, so some publications in the UK and other
countries use that instead; it describes the exact same phenomenon.)

Climate Change 101 17