We'll start our module with the basics of climate science and a key question

what's the difference between weather and climate? Well as Mark Twain
reportedly put it, climate is what you expect weather is what you get.
Climate is the statistical averages of weather over longer timescales, and the
climate involves the behavior of the entire complex earth's system, the
coupling of the ocean and atmosphere and the ice sheets and the biosphere, life on
earth. The behavior of the climate system varies over time for natural reasons
like the El Ni�o Southern Oscillation, for example, El Ni�o years tend to be
wetter in the winter in California and snowier in the southeastern US. If the
climate is always changing then as climate change by definition always
occurring? Well, yes and no. Let's take a look at the Cretaceous period. A hundred
million years ago, dinosaurs roamed the planet that the world was warmer than it
is today there was no ice at the poles. Why do you think the earth was warmer at
this time? Well a hint can be seen in this rendition of what Earth may have
looked like during the age of the dinosaurs which part of this mural
indicates why the Early Cretaceous was so warm? Well if you said something about
volcanic eruptions, you're right. Volcanic eruptions are one natural factor
influencing Earth's climate. On shorter time scales they can actually cool the
climate by putting particles into the atmosphere that block out the Sun for a
few years at a time, but on longer timescales they play a different role,
they pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
adding to the greenhouse effect. In Earth's geological past changes to the
climate occurred because of natural forces like these volcanoes, but they
played out over tens of millions of years. As we will see in the following
chapters the changes happening to the atmosphere today are not natural they
are due to human activity
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