Although some people often use ‘global warming’ when speaking about the Earth’s changing climate, the term does, in fact, represent one of several characteristics of the broader concept of ‘climate change’. However, it is worth mentioning that the latter began with global warming.
What is global warming?
This term is used by scientists to describe the continuous warming of the Earth’s surface, its oceans, and the atmosphere.
Despite the fact that the temperatures of our pale blue dot have been increasing for a very long time due to the actions of humankind, the atmospheric temperatures have registered a considerable increase mainly within the last one hundred years.
Fig.1. Global average land-sea temperature anomaly relative to the 1961-1990 average temperature
The main reason behind the increase in temperatures lies in millions of cars, planes, trains, and industries burning coal, oil, gasoline, and other fossil fuels. Such actions result in the gathering of greenhouse gases that are trapped in our atmosphere, serving as a blanket. As a result, these gases trap the heat that cannot be reflected into outer space, and thus the planet continues to become hotter.
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In 1896, the Swedish chemist and Nobel laureate, Svante Arrhenius, was the first to demonstrate that the CO2 released by the factories of that time would raise world temperatures in the future.
Where did the term “global warming” come from?
In 1975, Wallace Smith Broecker, an American geochemist, made the phrase “global warming” widely popular by using it in an article that projected the Earth’s significant warming due to the accumulation of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
The first use of the term, however, appeared in 1957, when a newspaper report referred to the research of Roger Revelle, an American scientist.
What is climate change?
Climate change is defined as a modification in average weather in a certain location over a specific time period.
The term was coined by physicist, Gilbert Plass, who in 1956 used the term in his article entitled “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change”.
In 1978 the scientific journal, Climatic Change, published its first issue and within the next 10 years, it had popularized this phrase.
Besides global warming, the term describes a list of other climate alterations including the melting of ice and the decrease in the level of snow, the rise of global sea levels, the increase in ocean and land temperatures as well as variations in plant flowering seasons.
See also: Top 5 countries most vulnerable to climate change

Although people’s actions undoubtedly contribute to climate change, it is also caused by natural processes which can be both internal and external.
🔹 Internal natural processes:
- Weather phenomenon such as El Niño (the warming of the waters of the equatorial Pacific’s central and east-central regions) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (El Niño-like trend of Pacific climate fluctuation that lasts a long time)
- Volcanic eruptions
🔹 External natural processes:
- Differences in the level of solar energy, the Earth receives as the amount of energy from the Sun is not constant and varies
- Disparities in the Earth’s orbit (Namely, eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession. Changes in these categories occur once in tens of thousands of years)
All of these shifts are monitored by specialists from the surface, air, and space who then make use of various theoretical models to analyze climate change. According to the collected data, specialists can obtain proof regarding the signs of climate change.
Temperature records
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the year 2020 was the second-warmest ever recorded with the first place being held by 2016.
Fig.2. Land and Ocean Temperature Percentiles Jan-Dec 2020

Compared to the average surface temperature records of the 20th century (13.9 degrees Celsius), the figure registered in 2020 showed a 0.98-degree increase which is 1.19 degrees higher than the temperature estimated in the pre-industrial period.
It is also worth noting that the 10 warmest years ever recorded by researchers have happened since 2005.
Although often used as synonyms, ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ are two different terms that both describe Earth’s climatic changes caused by human activities.