Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Term:

Settings

Beginner Intermediate Advanced No Definitions Definition Life:

All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

CLAM Bake!

Climate Learning and Modeling Development Environment

CLAM Bake is a complete Python programming environment that allows you to code and run simple climate computer programs.

Getting Started

Use the buttons to toggle between this page, the code editor, the console output, the interaction window and the graphics canvas.

Introduction to CLAM Bake

This development environment provides access to:

Editor — A place to enter Python programs.
Console — A place to view the output of programs.
Canvas — A place where graphics can be drawn.
Library — A place where multiple programs can be save or loaded.

Credits and Thanks

The core of CLAM Bake is Skulpt, the Python to Javascript translator developed by Scott Graham.

The editor, CodeMirror, was developed by Marijn Haverbeke.

Python itself is a robust high-level programming language created by its Benevolent Dictator for Life, Guido van Rossum.

Python Editor

Execution Limit:

Console

Canvas

Library

Home

Arguments

Software

Resources Comments

The Consensus Project

Translations

About Donate

	Climate's changed before
	It's the sun
	It's not bad
	There is no consensus
	It's cooling
	Models are unreliable
	Temp record is unreliable
	Animals and plants can adapt
	It hasn't warmed since 1998
	Antarctica is gaining ice
	View All Arguments...

Latest Posts

Skeptic Rebuttal One Liners

	Skeptic Argument	One Liner	# of chars
1	"Climate's changed before"	Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.	96
2	"It's the sun"	In the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been going in opposite directions	94
3	"It's not bad"	Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives.	99
4	"There is no consensus"	97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.	63
5	"It's cooling"	The last decade 2000-2009 was the hottest on record.	52
6	"Models are unreliable"	Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean.	98
7	"Temp record is unreliable"	The warming trend is the same in rural and urban areas, measured by thermometers and satellites.	96
8	"Animals and plants can adapt"	Global warming will cause mass extinctions of species that cannot adapt on short time scales.	93
9	"It hasn't warmed since 1998"	For global records, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005.	71
10	"Antarctica is gaining ice"	Satellites measure Antarctica losing land ice at an accelerating rate.	70
11	"Ice age predicted in the 70s"	The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming.	67
12	"CO2 lags temperature"	CO2 didn't initiate warming from past ice ages but it did amplify the warming.	79
13	"Climate sensitivity is low"	Net positive feedback is confirmed by many different lines of evidence.	71
14	"We're heading into an ice age"	Worry about global warming impacts in the next 100 years, not an ice age in over 10,000 years.	94
15	"Ocean acidification isn't serious"	Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains.	56
16	"Hockey stick is broken"	Recent studies agree that recent global temperatures are unprecedented in the last 1000 years.	94
17	"Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy"	A number of investigations have cleared scientists of any wrongdoing in the media-hyped email incident.	103
18	"Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming"	There is increasing evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger due to global warming.	88
19	"Al Gore got it wrong"	Al Gore book is quite accurate, and far more accurate than contrarian books.	76
20	"Glaciers are growing"	Most glaciers are retreating, posing a serious problem for millions who rely on glaciers for water.	99
21	"It's cosmic rays"	Cosmic rays show no trend over the last 30 years & have had little impact on recent global warming.	99
22	"1934 - hottest year on record"	1934 was one of the hottest years in the US, not globally.	58
23	"It's freaking cold!"	A local cold day has nothing to do with the long-term trend of increasing global temperatures.	94
24	"Sea level rise is exaggerated"	A variety of different measurements find steadily rising sea levels over the past century.	90
25	"It's Urban Heat Island effect"	Urban and rural regions show the same warming trend.	52
26	"Medieval Warm Period was warmer"	Globally averaged temperature now is higher than global temperature in medieval times.	86
27	"Mars is warming"	Mars is not warming globally.	29
28	"Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle"	Thick arctic sea ice is undergoing a rapid retreat.	52
29	"Increasing CO2 has little to no effect"	The strong CO2 effect has been observed by many different measurements.	71
30	"Oceans are cooling"	The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming.	59
31	"Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions"	The natural cycle adds and removes CO2 to keep a balance; humans add extra CO2 without removing any.	100
32	"IPCC is alarmist"	Numerous papers have documented how IPCC predictions are more likely to underestimate the climate response.	114
33	"Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas"	Rising CO2 increases atmospheric water vapor, which makes global warming much worse.	91
34	"Polar bear numbers are increasing"	Polar bears are in danger of extinction as well as many other species.	70
35	"CO2 limits will harm the economy"	The benefits of a price on carbon outweigh the costs several times over.	79
36	"It's not happening"	There are many lines of evidence indicating global warming is unequivocal.	81
37	"Greenland was green"	Other parts of the earth got colder when Greenland got warmer.	62
38	"Greenland is gaining ice"	Greenland on the whole is losing ice, as confirmed by satellite measurement.	76
39	"CO2 is not a pollutant"	Through its impacts on the climate, CO2 presents a danger to public health and welfare, and thus qualifies as an air pollutant	133
40	"CO2 is plant food"	The effects of enhanced CO2 on terrestrial plants are variable and complex and dependent on numerous factors	115
41	"Other planets are warming"	Mars and Jupiter are not warming, and anyway the sun has recently been cooling slightly.	88
42	"Arctic sea ice has recovered"	Thick arctic sea ice is in rapid retreat.	41
43	"There's no empirical evidence"	There are multiple lines of direct observations that humans are causing global warming.	87
44	"We're coming out of the Little Ice Age"	Scientists have determined that the factors which caused the Little Ice Age cooling are not currently causing global warming	131
45	"There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature"	There is long-term correlation between CO2 and global temperature; other effects are short-term.	96
46	"It cooled mid-century"	Mid-century cooling involved aerosols and is irrelevant for recent global warming.	82
47	"CO2 was higher in the past"	When CO2 was higher in the past, the sun was cooler.	52
48	"It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low"	Early 20th century warming is due to several causes, including rising CO2.	74
49	"Global warming stopped in ~~1998~~, ~~1995~~, ~~2002~~, ~~2007~~, ~~2010~~, ????"	Global temperature is still rising and 2010 was the hottest recorded.	76
50	"Satellites show no warming in the troposphere"	The most recent satellite data show that the earth as a whole is warming.	73
51	"It's aerosols"	Aerosols have been masking global warming, which would be worse otherwise.	74
52	"It's El Niño"	El Nino has no trend and so is not responsible for the trend of global warming.	79
53	"2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells"	A cold day in Chicago in winter has nothing to do with the trend of global warming.	83
54	"It's a natural cycle"	No known natural forcing fits the fingerprints of observed warming except anthropogenic greenhouse gases.	106
55	"Mt. Kilimanjaro's ice loss is due to land use"	Most glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, notwithstanding a few complicated cases.	86
56	"There's no tropospheric hot spot"	We see a clear "short-term hot spot" - there's various evidence for a "long-term hot spot".	91
57	"It's not us"	Multiple sets of independent observations find a human fingerprint on climate change.	85
58	"It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation"	The PDO shows no trend, and therefore the PDO is not responsible for the trend of global warming.	97
59	"IPCC were wrong about Himalayan glaciers"	Glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, despite 1 error in 1 paragraph in a 1000 page IPCC report.	106
60	"Scientists can't even predict weather"	Weather and climate are different; climate predictions do not need weather detail.	82
61	"Greenhouse effect has been falsified"	The greenhouse effect is standard physics and confirmed by observations.	72
62	"2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory"	The 2nd law of thermodynamics is consistent with the greenhouse effect which is directly observed.	98
63	"The science isn't settled"	That human CO2 is causing global warming is known with high certainty & confirmed by observations.	98
64	"Clouds provide negative feedback"	Evidence is building that net cloud feedback is likely positive and unlikely to be strongly negative.	101
65	"Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated"	Sea level rise is now increasing faster than predicted due to unexpectedly rapid ice melting.	93
66	"It's the ocean"	The oceans are warming and moreover are becoming more acidic, threatening the food chain.	89
67	"IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests"	The IPCC statement on Amazon rainforests was correct, and was incorrectly reported in some media.	97
68	"Corals are resilient to bleaching"	Globally about 1% of coral is dying out each year.	50
69	"Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans"	Humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes.	46
70	"CO2 effect is saturated"	Direct measurements find that rising CO2 is trapping more heat.	63
71	"Greenland ice sheet won't collapse"	When Greenland was 3 to 5 degrees C warmer than today, a large portion of the Ice Sheet melted.	95
72	"It's methane"	Methane plays a minor role in global warming but could get much worse if permafrost starts to melt.	99
73	"CO2 has a short residence time"	Excess CO2 from human emissions has a long residence time of over 100 years	75
74	"CO2 measurements are suspect"	CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of stations across the globe, all reporting the same trend.	95
75	"Humidity is falling"	Multiple lines of independent evidence indicate humidity is rising and provides positive feedback.	98
76	"500 scientists refute the consensus"	Around 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming.	75
77	"Neptune is warming"	And the sun is cooling.	23
78	"Springs aren't advancing"	Hundreds of flowers across the UK are flowering earlier now than any time in 250 years.	87
79	"Jupiter is warming"	Jupiter is not warming, and anyway the sun is cooling.	54
80	"It's land use"	Land use plays a minor role in climate change, although carbon sequestration may help to mitigate.	98
81	"Scientists tried to 'hide the decline' in global temperature"	The 'decline' refers to a decline in northern tree-rings, not global temperature, and is openly discussed in papers and the IPCC reports.	138
82	"CO2 is not increasing"	CO2 is increasing rapidly, and is reaching levels not seen on the earth for millions of years.	94
83	"Record snowfall disproves global warming"	Warming leads to increased evaporation and precipitation, which falls as increased snow in winter.	98
84	"They changed the name from global warming to climate change"	'Global warming' and 'climate change' mean different things and have both been used for decades.	96
85	"Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun"	The sun has not warmed since 1970 and so cannot be driving global warming.	74
86	"CO2 is coming from the ocean"	The ocean is absorbing massive amounts of CO2, and is becoming more acidic as a result.	87
87	"IPCC overestimate temperature rise"	Monckton used the IPCC equation in an inappropriate manner.	59
88	"CO2 is not the only driver of climate"	Theory, models and direct measurement confirm CO2 is currently the main driver of climate change.	97
89	"Peer review process was corrupted"	An Independent Review concluded that CRU's actions were normal and didn't threaten the integrity of peer review.	112
90	"Southern sea ice is increasing"	Antarctic sea ice has grown in recent decades despite the Southern Ocean warming at the same time.	99
91	"It's microsite influences"	Microsite influences on temperature changes are minimal; good and bad sites show the same trend.	96
92	"Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995"	Phil Jones was misquoted.	25
93	"Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate"	Humans are small but powerful, and human CO2 emissions are causing global warming.	82
94	"Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity"	Lindzen and Choi’s paper is viewed as unacceptably flawed by other climate scientists.	88
95	"Dropped stations introduce warming bias"	If the dropped stations had been kept, the temperature would actually be slightly higher.	89
96	"It's too hard"	Scientific studies have determined that current technology is sufficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid dangerous climate change.	149
97	"It's albedo"	Albedo change in the Arctic, due to receding ice, is increasing global warming.	79
98	"Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960"	This is a detail that is complex, local, and irrelevant to the observed global warming trend.	93
99	"Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong"	Jim Hansen had several possible scenarios; his mid-level scenario B was right.	85
100	"Roy Spencer finds negative feedback"	Spencer's model is too simple, excluding important factors like ocean dynamics and treats cloud feedbacks as forcings.	118
101	"It's global brightening"	This is a complex aerosol effect with unclear temperature significance.	71
102	"Arctic sea ice loss is matched by Antarctic sea ice gain"	Arctic sea ice loss is three times greater than Antarctic sea ice gain.	71
103	"It's a climate regime shift"	There is no evidence that climate has chaotic “regimes” on a long-term basis.	81
104	"Earth hasn't warmed as much as expected"	This argument ignores the cooling effect of aerosols and the planet's thermal inertia.	86
105	"Solar cycles cause global warming"	Over recent decades, the sun has been slightly cooling & is irrelevant to recent global warming.	96
106	"Less than half of published scientists endorse global warming"	Around 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming.	75
107	"Ice isn't melting"	Arctic sea ice has shrunk by an area equal to Western Australia, and summer or multi-year sea ice might be all gone within a decade.	141
108	"Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project"	The 'OISM petition' was signed by only a few climatologists.	60
109	"Climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted"	Weather is chaotic but climate is driven by Earth's energy imbalance, which is more predictable.	96
110	"It's ozone"	Ozone has only a small effect.	30
111	"Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored"	An independent inquiry found CRU is a small research unit with limited resources and their rigour and honesty are not in doubt.	127
112	"The IPCC consensus is phoney"	113 nations signed onto the 2007 IPCC report, which is simply a summary of the current body of climate science evidence	126
113	"Tuvalu sea level isn't rising"	Tuvalu sea level is rising 3 times larger than the global average.	66
114	"A drop in volcanic activity caused warming"	Volcanoes have had no warming effect in recent global warming - if anything, a cooling effect.	94
115	"Trenberth can't account for the lack of warming"	Trenberth is talking about the details of energy flow, not whether global warming is happening.	95
116	"Renewables can't provide baseload power"	A number of renewable sources already do provide baseload power, and we don't need renewables to provide a large percentage of baseload power immediately.	161
117	"Ice Sheet losses are overestimated"	A number of independent measurements find extensive ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland.	91
118	"CRU tampered with temperature data"	An independent inquiry went back to primary data sources and were able to replicate CRU's results.	98
119	"Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus was flawed"	Benny Peiser, the Oreskes critic, retracted his criticism.	59
120	"Melting ice isn't warming the Arctic"	Melting ice leads to more sunlight being absorbed by water, thus heating the Arctic.	84
121	"Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup"	By breathing out, we are simply returning to the air the same CO2 that was there to begin with.	95
122	"Satellite error inflated Great Lakes temperatures"	Temperature errors in the Great Lakes region are not used in any global temperature records.	93
123	"Soares finds lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature"	Soares looks at short-term trends which are swamped by natural variations while ignoring the long-term correlation.	115
124	"We're heading into cooling"	There is no scientific basis for claims that the planet will begin to cool in the near future.	94
125	"Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural"	Multiple lines of evidence make it very clear that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to human emissions.	105
126	"Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer"	This argument uses regional temperature data that ends in 1855, long before modern global warming began.	104
127	"CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration"	That humans are causing the rise in atmospheric CO2 is confirmed by multiple isotopic analyses.	95
128	"The sun is getting hotter"	The sun has just had the deepest solar minimum in 100 years.	60
129	"It's waste heat"	Greenhouse warming is adding 100 times more heat to the climate than waste heat.	80
130	"Water vapor in the stratosphere stopped global warming"	This possibility just means that future global warming could be even worse.	75
131	"It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940"	The warming trend over 1970 to 2001 is greater than warming from both 1860 to 1880 and 1910 to 1940.	100
132	"An exponential increase in CO2 will result in a linear increase in temperature"	CO2 levels are rising so fast that unless we decrease emissions, global warming will accelerate this century.	109
133	"Record high snow cover was set in winter 2008/2009"	Winter snow cover in 2008/2009 was average while the long-term trend in spring, summer, and annual snow cover is rapid decline.	127
134	"Mauna Loa is a volcano"	The global trend is calculated from hundreds of CO2 measuring stations and confirmed by satellites.	99
135	"CERN CLOUD experiment proved cosmic rays are causing global warming"	The CERN CLOUD experiment only tested one-third of one out of four requirements necessary to blame global warming on cosmic rays, and two of the other requirements have already failed.	184
136	"Antarctica is too cold to lose ice"	Glaciers are sliding faster into the ocean because ice shelves are thinning due to warming oceans.	98
137	"Positive feedback means runaway warming"	Positive feedback won't lead to runaway warming; diminishing returns on feedback cycles limit the amplification.	113
138	"Skeptics were kept out of the IPCC?"	Official records, Editors and emails suggest CRU scientists acted in the spirit if not the letter of IPCC rules.	112
139	"Water levels correlate with sunspots"	This detail is irrelevant to the observation of global warming caused by humans.	80
140	"CO2 was higher in the late Ordovician"	The sun was much cooler during the Ordovician.	46
141	"It's CFCs"	CFCs contribute at a small level.	33
142	"Scientists retracted claim that sea levels are rising"	The Siddall 2009 paper was retracted because its predicted sea level rise was too low.	86
143	"Warming causes CO2 rise"	Recent warming is due to rising CO2.	36
144	"Greenland has only lost a tiny fraction of its ice mass"	Greenland's ice loss is accelerating & will add metres of sea level rise in upcoming centuries.	95
145	"DMI show cooling Arctic"	While summer maximums have showed little trend, the annual average Arctic temperature has risen sharply in recent decades.	123
146	"Royal Society embraces skepticism"	The Royal Society still strongly state that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming.	99
147	"It's only a few degrees"	A few degrees of global warming has a huge impact on ice sheets, sea levels and other aspects of climate.	105
148	"It's satellite microwave transmissions"	Satellite transmissions are extremely small and irrelevant.	59
149	"CO2 only causes 35% of global warming"	CO2 and corresponding water vapor feedback are the biggest cause of global warming.	90
150	"Sea level fell in 2010"	The temporary drop in sea level in 2010 was due to intense land flooding caused by a strong La Nina.	100
151	"Arctic sea ice extent was lower in the past"	Current Arctic sea ice extent is the lowest in the past several thousand years.	86
152	"We didn't have global warming during the Industrial Revolution"	CO2 emissions were much smaller 100 years ago.	46
153	"Loehle and Scafetta find a 60 year cycle causing global warming"	Loehle and Scafetta's paper is nothing more than a curve fitting exercise with no physical basis using an overly simplistic model.	130
154	"Postma disproved the greenhouse effect"	Postma's model contains many simple errors; in no way does Postma undermine the existence or necessity of the greenhouse effect.	128