global warming

[ gloh-buhl wawrm-ing ]

noun

1. an increase in the earth's average atmospheric temperature that causes corresponding changes in climate, as a consequence of the greenhouse effect.

global warming

noun

1. an increase in the average temperature worldwide believed to be caused by the greenhouse effect

global warming

1. An increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere, especially a sustained increase great enough to cause changes in the global climate. The Earth has experienced numerous episodes of global warming through its history, and currently appears to be undergoing such warming. The present warming is generally attributed to an increase in the greenhouse effect , brought about by increased levels of greenhouse gases , largely due to the effects of human industry and agriculture. Expected long-term effects of current global warming are rising sea levels, flooding, melting of polar ice caps and glaciers, fluctuations in temperature and precipitation, more frequent and stronger El Niños and La Niñas, drought, heat waves, and forest fires.
2. See more at greenhouse effect

global warming

1. The term attached to the notion that the Earth 's temperature is increasing due to the greenhouse effect .

Notes

Whether global warming is actually happening is a subject of scientific debate.

Word History and Origins

Origin of global warming¹

First recorded in 1975–80

Example Sentences

The use of oil and gas are major causes of global warming, as they release planet-warming gases like carbon dioxide when they are burned.

From BBC

Global warming would “put strictures on the economic growth that has been the great social salve that has kept some groups, in some measure, from each other’s throats,” he told his close friend Otis Graham, the University of California, Santa Barbara, historian.

From Salon

His answer helped the Tanton organizations reframe immigration squarely in global warming terms: Newcomers to the United States were making climate change worse, because as they increased their consumption here, their carbon emissions would increase, too.

From Salon

The suggestion was that by doing so the Center for Immigration Studies would give liberals reason to support hard-line immigration controls and perhaps also offer conservatives an avenue to fold global warming into their narratives of a country under assault.

From Salon

Now, politicians, newscasters, podcast hosts and white nationalists were picking up his ideas about pollution and scarcity, immigration and global warming, that fit their agendas, swirling them together with historical tropes about ecology and racist thought and conspiracy theories, not sure, necessarily, where the ideas had come from but eager to trade on their currency.

From Salon