What is Climate Change?

Climate is the usual weather of a place. Climate can be different for different seasons. A place might be mostly warm and dry in the summer. The same place may be cool and wet in the winter. Different places can have different climates. You might live where it snows all the time. And some people live where it is always warm enough to swim outside!

There's also Earth's climate. Earth's climate is what you get when you combine all the climates around the world together.

Earth's climate is always changing. There have been times when Earth's climate has been warmer than it is now. There have been times when it has been cooler. These times can last thousands or millions of years.

Climate change is the variation of the global anual temperature. During the lasr 100 years the average global temperaturas have been rising. They have only risen by 1ºc, but the increases has happened quicker tan ever before.  It doesn't look like a great change but small changes in Earth's temperature can have big effects.

Some effects are already happening. Warming of Earth's climate has caused some snow and ice to melt. The warming also has caused oceans to rise. And it has changed the timing of when certain plants grow.