29 Jul '14 09:51>
Originally posted by twhiteheadThanks for this link, quite interesting. There is nothing that I disagree with in the Conclusion quoted below.
Some references claim otherwise:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=326
Actually, it confirms what I said (and you too) that the two phenomena are different.
It also confirms that the "they changed the name!" cry comes from conspiracy theory alarmists.
What i DID find interesting, is that the GW name appears to be still in use officially, at least somewhere. I did not know that. Speaking totally from personal experience, I have just noticed an increase in the term CC, especially from COP17 forward. The graph shows that there IS an increase in Cc vs GW, but not as significant as I had thought.
So to sum up, although the terms are used interchangeably because they are causally related, 'global warming' and 'climate change' refer to different physical phenomena. The term 'climate change' has been used frequently in the scientific literature for many decades, and the usage of both terms has increased over the past 40 years. Moreover, since the planet continues to warm, there is no reason to change the terminology. Perhaps the only individual to advocate the change was Frank Luntz, a Republican political strategist and global warming skeptic, who used focus group results to determine that the term 'climate change' is less frightening to the general public than 'global warming'. There is simply no factual basis whatsoever to the myth "they changed the name from global warming to climate change".