Climate change

This section covers:

See also:

International standards and resources

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a glossary of terms. Note that many terms in this glossary do not comply with Australian editorial conventions, particularly in relation to the use of capital letters, so the glossary should be used with caution.

Australian conventions and resources

The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO publish information about climate change in Australia.

Terms to watch out for:

climate change, climate variability, global warming, global change, greenhouse effect

climate change: the long-term change in Earth’s weather patterns. Although the term is often used to refer to anthropogenic climate change – that is, caused by human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and mass deforestation – Earth system events, such as volcanic eruptions and tectonic plate movements, also contribute to climate change

climate variability: the year-to-year change seen in regional weather; should not be used interchangeably with climate change

global warming: the increasing average global air temperature that is associated with climate change

global change: planetary-scale changes in atmospheric circulation, ocean circulation, climate, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the water cycle, sea ice, sea level, food webs, biological diversity, pollution, health and so on

greenhouse effect: the process by which radiation from a planet’s atmosphere warms the surface of the planet to a temperature above what it would be in the absence of an atmosphere. Anthropogenic climate change is sometimes referred to as the enhanced greenhouse effect

climate, weather

climate: the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general, or over a particular period

weather: the temperature and conditions of cloudiness, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain and so on, at a particular place and time

See all terms

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Use initial capitals for the names of IPCC working groups and reports:

Working Group I     IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)

Did you know? See Writing about evidence for background relating to the IPCC’s classification of evidence.

Use initial capitals for formal terms:

Last Glacial Maximum     Last Millennium     International Polar Year 2007–2009

Use lower case for generic terms:

Earth system models (ESMs)     global climate model [or general circulation model] (GCM)

Reminder. Initial capitals are used only for formal names. Informal and collective (plural) references to the same item do not need capitals. See Capital letters for further information on when to use capitals.

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Greenhouse gases

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) absorb and emit radiation in Earth’s atmosphere, leading to a greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is necessary – without it, Earth’s average temperature would be much colder. However, increasing the greenhouse effect by increasing the levels of GHGs in the atmosphere is contributing to climate change.

Use lower case for the names of GHGs:

carbon dioxide     methane     nitrous oxide     chlorofluorocarbon     hydrofluorocarbon     water vapour     
short-lived tropospheric ozone

For publications for a general audience, the names of other gases should be spelt out in full. For more technical publications, they can be shortened to chemical formulas: 

carbon dioxide   or   CO2   not   CO2, CO2

methane   or   CH4

nitrous oxide   or   N2O

ozone   or   O3

water vapour   or   H2O

See Chemical formulas for more information on presenting chemical names.

NOx is a generic term for nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, or nitrogen oxides. Note that the x is lower case, subscripted and italic; other variations (eg NOx) are not correct. 

Chlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons are groups of compounds that can be referred to in their shortened forms:

chlorofluorocarbons   or   CFCs     hydrofluorocarbons   or   HFCs

If shortened forms for chemical compouinds are used, identify them in full at first use in the text:

… carbon dioxide (CO2)     … hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)     … nitrogen oxides (NOx)     

GHG emissions are generally reported as parts per million (ppm) or parts per billion (ppb) (see Relative units). The carbon dioxide equivalent is often displayed as CO2 equivalents (CO2-e) and is often reported as parts per million by volume (ppmv), megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (MtCO2-e) or gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (GtCO2-e).

Reminder. Use lower case for the initialisms ppm, ppb and ppmv.

Use a lower case, italic p for the unit ‘partial pressure of CO2’:

pCO2

Emissions is generally plural when referring to GHGs:

carbon dioxide emissions     emissions targets

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