Hot Topics: Climate Change: Home

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Reference Desk 563/333-6245
Email at : librefdesk@sau.edu

Law and Legislation:
this tab covers the legal aspects of climate change.

Social and Science Aspects:
this tab covers highly selected scientific, moral, ethical, societal and religious views and includes breaking news.

Global warming = the increase in energy retained in the Earth system due to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, resulting in a rise in temperatures.
Climate change = the impacts resulting from that increase in retained energy and rise in temperatures.

Weather is not the same as climate!
Weather = Weather is the combination of the current meteorological components, e.g. temperature, wind direction and speed, amount and type of precipitation, sun shine hours, etc. The weather is defining a short time period up to several days.
Weather conditions = Weather condition is the regional weather during a defined time period from one up to several weeks. Weather condition is describing typical weather phenomena, such as a series of thunderstorm in hot summer, foggy month in autumn or other weather conditions which are typical for a specific region and/or season.
Climate = The climate is describing the long term (min 30 years) and average weather conditions for a specific region. Examples: maritime climate, cold-dry desert climate, tropical climate. Global climate classification maps highlight the high variety of climates.