History of the science

Research in the 1950s suggested that temperatures were increasing, and a 1952 newspaper used the term "climate change". This phrase next appeared in a November 1957 report in The Hammond Times which described Roger Revelle's research into the effects of increasing human-caused CO

₂ emissions on the greenhouse effect: "a large scale global warming, with radical climate changes may result". A 1971 MIT report referred to the human impact as "inadvertent climate modification", identifying many possible causes.^[294]

Both the terms global warming and climate change were used only occasionally until 1975, when Wallace Smith Broecker published a scientific paper on the topic, "Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?". The phrase began to come into common use, and in 1976 Mikhail Budyko's statement that "a global warming up has started" was widely reported.^[295] An influential 1979 National Academy of Sciences study headed by Jule Charney followed Broecker in using global warming to refer to rising surface temperatures, while describing the wider effects of increased CO

₂ as climate change.^[296]

There were increasing heatwaves and drought problems in the summer of 1988, and NASA climate scientist James Hansen's testimony in the U.S. Senate sparked worldwide interest.^[292] He said, "Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and the observed warming."^[297] Public attention increased over the summer, and global warming became the dominant popular term, commonly used both by the press and in public discourse.^[296] In the 2000s, the term climate change increased in popularity.^[298]

People who regard climate change as catastrophic, irreversible, or rapid might label climate change as a climate crisis or a climate emergency.^[299] One newspaper, The Guardian, has embraced this terminology (as well as global heating) in their editorial guidelines.^[300] In a statement explaining the paper's policy editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner said "We want to ensure that we are being scientifically precise, while also communicating clearly with readers on this very important issue"

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