Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Term:

Settings

Beginner Intermediate Advanced No Definitions Definition Life:

All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Home

Arguments

Software

Resources Comments

The Consensus Project

Translations

About Support

	Climate's changed before
	It's the sun
	It's not bad
	There is no consensus
	It's cooling
	Models are unreliable
	Temp record is unreliable
	Animals and plants can adapt
	It hasn't warmed since 1998
	Antarctica is gaining ice
	View All Arguments...

Latest Posts

Escalator 2022

This version of the Escalator graphic is based on data including the year 2022. The previous versions are still available here with data including 2015 or as a video including 2016. When Robert Rohde updated the escalator and produced a staircase of denial in January 2023, it motivated us to follow suit and to update our escalator with the latest available data as well.

One of the most common misunderstandings amongst climate contrarians is the difference between short-term noise and long-term signal. This animation shows how the same temperature data (black) that is used to determine the long-term global surface air warming trend of 0.19°C per decade (red) can be used inappropriately to "cherrypick" short time periods that show a cooling trend simply because the endpoints are carefully chosen and the trend is dominated by short-term noise in the data (blue steps). Isn't it strange how six periods of cooling can add up to a clear warming trend over the last 4 decades? Several factors can have a large impact on short-term temperatures, such as oceanic cycles like the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or the 11-year solar cycle. These short-term cycles don't have long-term effects on the Earth's temperature, unlike the continuing upward trend caused by global warming from human greenhouse gas emissions.

Source for data used in the graphic: Global mean monthly temperature anomalies, relative to the 1850-1900 mean, from Berkeley Earth.

Blog post introducing the 2022 version of the escalator graphic