1.0 Terminology
The most general definition of climate change in the statistical properties (principally is mean and spread) of the climate system when considered over long period of time, regardless of cause. Accordingly fluctuations over periods shorter than a few decades, such as El Nino, do not represent climate change.
The term “climate change” is often used to refer specially to anthropogenic climate change (also known as global warming). Anthropogenic climate change is caused by human activity as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as party earth's natural processes.
In this sense, especially in the context of environmental policy, the term climate change has become synonymous with anthropogenic global warning. Within scientific journals, global warming refers to surface temperature increase while climate change includes global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas level affected.
A related term is “climate change”. In 1966, the world meteorological organization (WMO) proposed the term “climate change” to encompass all forms of climatic variability on time-scales longer than 10 years, regardless of cause. Change was a given and climate was used as an adjective to describe this kind of change (as opposed to political or economic change).
When it was realized that human activities had a potential to drastically alter the climate, the term climate change replaced climate change as the dominant term to reflect an anthropogenic cause. Climate change was incorporated in the title of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) and the UN framework. Convention on climate change (UNFCCC). Climate change, used as a noun, became an issue rather than the technical description of changing weather.
…