Are they saying "climate change" instead of "global warming" because it stopped warming?

Question

and they want to keep saying that whatever happens is our fault?

Answer 1

I believe so.

This way they are able to cover all of their bases.

If it is hotter, colder, drier, wetter, etc. than normal(if there is any such thing as normal weather conditions), it can be blamed on climate change.

The term 'Climate Change' is in itself farcical, since climate constantly changes.

It always has and always will.

Mankind could have no impact on climate simply because we are far too insignificant and powerless.

Our arrogance will let many people believe differently however.  

Answer 2

NO.  Because "Global Warming" was too politically charged.  Scientists chose a term that tries to take politics out and focus on the science.

Answer 3

Since the climate is getting warmer, the two terms can be used pretty much interchangeably. I just wrote a long research paper on this subject for my summer college class. The globe hasn't stopped warming. In fact, it is just getting started at this point, and if nothing is done, changes will be increasingly alarming and dramatic.

Answer 4

YES,

Pro-AGW organizations say "the term climate change is preferred because it helps convey that there are other changes in addition to rising temperatures".

So for them, any current climate event that may have a negative impact to civilization, IT'S OUR FAULT and we are to be blamed, thus it would look more logical that WE MUST PAY FOR IT through economical restrictive policies, higher taxes, etc. Very convenient, is it not?

Because If it's just a natural cycle, then they have to blame NATURE  for it and that is not tangible enough to justify the implementation of those ridiculous policies that they came up with!

Of course, things like Education and better Health Care (among others) can certainly be put on hold in the name of "stopping global warming", oops sorry, I mean "stopping climate changes".

Answer 5

Increased CO2primarily from the combustion of fossil fuel is warming the planet (increase in the mean global temperature).  Increasing the temperature of the planet causes climate changes (climate is one of the mechanisms to redistribute energy over the planet, ocean currents are another).  

You may also benefit from a basic statistics course.  Lets start with weather.  Weather is what you experience at a particular place and time.  It varies greatly because of all the factors that affect it for example, topography, land cover, evapotransipration, albedo, activity in adjacent areas, etc).  Climate is the long-term average.  We summarize weather to determine climate.  Climate is typically in long time steps to look for trends and to know what to expect.  The mean is the best guess, given know other information and the standard deviation is used to determine the limits of normal temperature, rainfall etc. The standard deviation can be used to calculate what the high and low mean values should be 95% of the time.  This is the 95% confidence interval of the mean.  Numbers between these intervals are considered normal.

When climatologist speak of climate, it is typically the 30 year average of weather values.  Sometimes, climatologist are worried about near-term events so they evaluate running means.  They can be 5 yr or 10 year values.  The longer the span, the better it is to evaluate long term trends, but the shorter the span, the more variation present and the more it reflects the short-term conditions. Also, the shorter the time span.  You could go down as low as 3 years, but this is really not very meaningful because the information to estimate standard deviation is just bare-minimum.  These running means are great for illustrating trends and identifying periods that need more in-depth investigation. Like a period between the 1940s and 1960s was relatively cool.  Hurricanes were also lower than the historical average during that time.  Climatologist went back through records and noticed a large number of volcanic eruptions that may have emitted lots of aerosols into the stratosphere that reflected more sun-light resulting in the cooler period. I post a link to the temperature change from 1850 to the present.

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warmin...

You are correct that if enough years in a row do not show a change, then the 5 year mean will level off. It will affect the 10 year mean and the 30 year mean.  Look at the present year in the graph.  The line reflects this aspect of the running mean.  The bars are annual observations.      

You'll also notice some flat periods in the past, but the fact remains that the mean global temperature has been rising rapidly since 1850, despite some years not warming as rapidly as others.  Physics suggest this should happen because of all of the CO2 humans pump into the atmosphere. The carbon cycle is out of balance.  It will take a few more years to credible say it has stopped warming.

The graph has the year to year observed values and a running mean trend line, although I don't know if it is a 5,10, or 30 year running mean.  It is probably 10 year running means because they authors evaluate decades, but the trend would be about the same for 5 year values - just noisier.  The graph was provided by the Office Hadley Centre in Great Britain - the UK equivalent of NOAA.  NASA linked to the site.

Here is the NASA site if you are interested in the science behind global warming and the evidence.  It is from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/evidence/

Answer 6

The climate is constantly changing but not always warming.

The Sun remains the singular most influential warmer of our planet and it is known to flare up in fairly regular cycles. I think the primary motive for the Global warming fad was political. Time will tell. I believe the Sun has began to mellow out, there are sources for this info but I'm too lazy to give you a link, a little web search will give you the answer.

Answer 7

Yes.

Answer 8

think it's an attempt to acknowledge the spatial variability of the  phenomenon... that is as some places warm others will cool...  

Answer 9

Yes.  It made them look silly to say global warming when places all over had one of the mildest winters on record

Answer 10

Do you mean "stopped" warming like this?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/F...

The black line is the annual mean.