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he rku I I orkaEG nes Climate Change Is Complex. We've Got Answers to Your Questions. By Justin Gillis - The New York Times Sept. 19, 2017 We know. Global warming is daunting. So here's a place to start: 17 often -asked questions with some straightforward answers. Part 1 - What is happening? 1. Climate change? Global warming? What do we call it? Both are accurate, but they mean different things. You can think of global warming as one type of climate change. The broader term covers changes beyond warmer temperatures, such as shifting rainfall patterns. President Trump has claimed that scientists stopped referring to global warming and started calling it climate change because "the weather has been so cold" in winter. But the claim is false. Scientists have used both terms for decades. 2. How much is the Earth heating up? Two degrees is more significant than it sounds. As of early 2017, the Earth had warmed by roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (more than 1 degree Celsius) since 1880, when records began at a global scale. The number may sound low, but as an average over the surface of an entire planet, it is actually high, which explains why much of the world's land ice is starting to melt and the oceans are rising at an accelerating pace. If greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, scientists say, the global warming could ultimately exceed 8 degrees Fahrenheit, which would undermine the planet's capacity to support a large human population. 3. What is the greenhouse effect, and how does it cause global warming? We've known about it for more than a century. Really. In the 19th century, scientists discovered that certain gases in the air trap and slow down heat that would otherwise escape to space. Carbon dioxide is a major player; without any of it in the air, the Earth would be a frozen wasteland. The first prediction that the planet would warm as humans released more of the gas was made in 1896. The gas has increased 43 percent above the pre - industrial level so far, and the Earth has warmed by roughly the amount that scientists predicted it would. 4. How do we know humans are responsible for the increase in carbon dioxide? This one is nailed down. Hard evidence, including studies that use radioactivity to distinguish industrial emissions from natural emissions, shows that the extra gas is coming from human activity. Carbon dioxide levels rose and fell naturally in the long -ago past, but those changes took thousands of years. Geologists say that humans are now pumping the gas into the air much faster than nature has ever done. https: / /www. nytimes.com /interactive /2017/cli mate /what- is -cli mate - change.html ?em_pos = large &emc =ed it_cl i m_20170919 &n 1 = &nI id= 78952708 &ref =head I ine &te =1