climate change

noun

: significant and long-lasting change in the earth's climate and weather patterns

The half-tonne … turtles were thought to have died out 30,000 to 40,000 years ago because of climate change.

—New Scientist

especially, in current use : such change associated with global warming

Concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change are renewed among scientists and the public with every new report about the possibility of melting icecaps and rising temperatures.

—Randy Showstack

Drought is a paleontological fact in the American West, but the latest desiccations have a new signature, and my region's climatologists, hydrologists, foresters, and water managers are nearly unanimous in their conviction that what we are seeing now is climate change, the anthropogenic kind, a consequence of too much CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

—Kenneth Brower

Examples of climate change in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Finally, many of us are still concerned with the pollution that fossil fuels cause, especially here in Florida, where the effects of climate change and sea level rise are becoming more obvious by the year. —Tom Caffery, The Orlando Sentinel, 30 Apr. 2026

Now in its sixth year, the NRDC Climate Storytelling Fellowship is a program designed to help screenwriters develop compelling stories involving climate change and environmental justice. —Matt Grobar, Deadline, 30 Apr. 2026

And as climate change is likely to cause more storms in the future, more people will be put at risk. —Devika Rao, TheWeek, 30 Apr. 2026

Revisit Elizabeth Kolbert’s urgent three-part series, from 2005, about the social, scientific, and political effects of climate change. —Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker, 30 Apr. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1854, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for climate change

• arrange
• derange
• estrange
• exchange
• midrange
• grange
• mange
• range
• strange
• interchange
• rearrange

Kids Definition

climate change

noun

: significant and long-lasting change in the earth's climate and weather patterns

especially : such change associated with global warming