The climate where you live is called regional climate. Global climate is a description of the climate of a planet as a whole, with all the regional differences averaged.

Over the past century, the global average temperature has warmed. Learn the science of why this has happened, and what the future holds.

Without the greenhouse effect, Earth’s temperature would be below freezing. It is, in part, a natural process. However, Earth’s greenhouse effect is getting stronger as we add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. That is warming the climate of our planet.

How has our knowledge about Earth's climate grown over time? Use our interactive timeline to explore important and interesting scientific milestones, including when carbon dioxide was first discovered and when we learned about the heat-trapping ability of gases.

Factors that have the power to change global climate can be natural, like volcanic eruptions and changes in solar energy, or caused by humans, like the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

The biosphere includes all life on our planet. Interdisciplinary research combining biochemistry, geochemistry, biology, hydrology, and atmospheric science helps us to better understand the biosphere’s role in the Earth system and, in particular, how biogeochemical cycles affect the Earth system.

Learn how the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate fluctuation affects weather around the world.

Climate is the long-term average of the variable patterns of weather. Climate, however, can vary over time as well.

How has the geosphere impacted Earth’s climate? Typically, the geosphere reacts on geologic timescales, affecting climate slowly and over millions of years. However, the burning of fossil fuels over the last 150 years has sped the impact of the geosphere on climate.

Both direct and indirect measurements are important for understanding the true scale of climate change. Learn how scientists use indirect evidence to study both modern and past climate change.

In order to predict our future climate, it's helpful to understand how and why the climate has changed in the past.

Climate change research involves numerous disciplines of Earth system science as well as technology, engineering, and programming. Some major areas of climate change research include water, energy, ecosystems, air quality, solar physics, glaciology, human health, wildfires, and land use.

Accounting for all the energy that enters and leaves the Earth system helps us understand how the planet maintains a habitable temperature. This accounting of energy is known as Earth’s radiation budget.