by Rex Trulove

Created on: December 12, 2007

Much of the controversy surrounding whether or not there is a catastrophic change that is occurring on Earth has to do with the definition and differences between climate change and global warming. It isn't hard to see why.

Climate change is a fluctuation in the climate in any given area. For instance, large parts of Colorado received record snowfalls in 2006, and winter in 2007 is starting just as harshly. Yet in 2004, the same areas were suffering drought conditions and above normal temperatures. Does this in itself signal either a warming or cooling effect globally? Not at all, it doesn't.

Global weather is in a state of constant flux. All that a drought in one place means is that it is very likely that there is above average precipitation in another. Higher than normal temperatures in one location usually signals that there is below normal temperatures someplace else. It has been this way for a very long time, no doubt long before weather statistics were gathered on a global scale.

Sometimes a massive event, such as a major eruption that sends cubic miles of debris and ash into the atmosphere, can affect the climate for most of the globe. Ash blocking sunlight generally means lower than normal temperatures, worldwide, and often many strange atmospheric events. Still, this has nothing to do with global cooling or warming except in the short term. As the ash filters out of the atmosphere, temperatures again raise.

Global warming or cooling, on the other hand, takes the mean average temperature, worldwide, and compares it over time. This isn't at all easy to do, since many local features also generate temperatures locally, and also considering that there are still a great many areas where temperatures are rarely taken. At best, it is a guess, either way.

It should be noted that climate is not the same as temperature (warming or cooling). Climate is not only the average, but it takes into consideration the overall weather, and not just the temperature. Temperature measures only that; temperature, and it is not a true average.

Using the relatively small amount of data that we do have, we can guess that the global temperatures have raised a few tenths of a degree in the last century. Other guesses are that this has been occurring at approximately the same speed for at least the last several centuries, except during the Little Ice Age, when global temperatures fell greatly.

In order to truly understand the debate, this difference is crucial. The ice packs and polar

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