ESS5
Prof.
Jin-Yi Yu
Climate
Change and Climate Variability
qClimate
Change
Climate change refers to a statistically
significant variation in either the mean state of
the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer). Climate change
may be due to natural internal
processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the
atmosphere or in land use.
qClimate
Variability
Climate variability refers to variations
in the mean state and other statistics
(such as standard deviations, the occurrence of extremes, etc.) of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales
beyond that of individual weather
events. Variability may be due to natural internal processes within the climate system (internal
variability), or to variations in natural
or anthropogenic external forcing (external variability).