Climate Change versus Global Warming

The western states of the United States are suffering a drought of historical proportions, as are parts of Australia and Greece. England is suffering torrential rains as are parts of Australia. Huge areas of Africa are undergoing desertification, only partially as a result of mismanagement of the land. I suspect that we are seeing changes in the climate in these regions -- changes which are occurring much faster than those of prehistory because they are induced by the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere because of human activity (and perhaps other human induced changes in the environment).

The point I am making is that climate is a local condition, not a global one. England and Greece both have climates and they are quite different one from the other. It is possible for one part of Europe to become dryer and one to become wetter as a result of the same global changes.

Climate change need not be radical to cause major problems. A Mediterranean climate such as that in southern California does not need to change to a Saharan climate for the natural vegitation to wither and die, and for forest fires to become a major threat. Nor does it have to change to a wet climate like that in the south of Chile for farmers to have to abandon the practices that they have been using successfully and change to new varieties or even new crops.

Global warming will not progress by making everywhere a little bit warmer. All the models seem to indicate that instead there will be some areas that will become drier and some wetter, some warmer and some cooler. Lots of countries will probably experience fairly large climate changes, which will average out globally into a smaller average change. Unfortunately, the larger local changes will be what people actually feel, and what will affect the farmers and disease vectors.

Of course there will be changes that are global. As sea level rises, low coastal areas will be inundated everywhere that people are not able to afford expensive barriers to the sea.

Indeed, even if some unexpected factors reduce the rise in global average temperature, such as an increase in cloud cover reflecting more sunlight, there would be large areas of climate change, such as areas having more cloud cover.

Perhaps "global warming" is not as good a term as "climate change" to describe what we are worrying about.Perhaps we are not so much worried about "global climate change" as a global pattern of local climate changes.