Commonly Asked Climate Questions and Answers
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Meteorologist Bob Ryan’s
Global Warming Discussion
Through conversations at the June 2008 AMS Conference on Broadcast Meteorology, and a May 2008 climate change survey conducted by Dr. Kris Wilson of Emory University, we asked meteorologists to tell us which climate questions they received most frequently from their viewers. Based on those responses, we have developed a set of answers to the most common questions.
These questions have been carefully researched and answered by Bob Henson, Writer/Editor/Media Relations Associate at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and author of The Rough Guide to Climate Change (Penguin, 2006), and Bud Ward, Editor of the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media.
DOWNLOAD a .pdf version of the Q & A.
- What is the difference between “climate change” and “global warming?”
- Is climate change natural or human-made?
- What are greenhouses gases? The greenhouse effect? How is the greenhouse effect different from global warming?
- Isn’t carbon dioxide a natural part of the atmosphere? If CO2 takes up such a small percentage of the atmosphere, why does it have such a big effect?
- How are weather observations used to predict climate? What else goes into observing climate? Are there errors in the observational data?
- If we can’t predict the weather a week out, why should we believe what climate models say about the next 100 years?
- If global warming is occurring, why was winter 2007-2008 so cold and snowy?
- Isn’t the climate always changing to some degree?
- Should we really attribute every extreme event (heat wave, heavy snow, hurricane, cold winter weather, etc.) to climate change?
- What role does the Sun play in climate change?
- What are some positive effects of climate change?
- Can scientists predict changes on a regional level? What will happen in my part of the country? How accurate are local predictions?
- What is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
- How did the IPCC form a consensus that evidence of global warming is “unequivocal?”
- How can I help my audiences understand climate change issues?