Internal Climate Variability

INTERNAL OR NATURAL climate variability refers to variations over time in one or more measures of climate, resulting from natural causes. The distinction between climate variability and weather variability is not a matter of different timescales; rather, it is based on the fundamental distinction between climate and weather: weather refers to meteorological conditions at a specific time and location, whereas climate refers to any statistical characterizations (such as a long-term mean) of weather conditions. Thus, for example, a single measurement of diurnal temperature range measures a weather variation, whereas an estimate of a multi-year mean diurnal temperature range is a climate variation. An alternative definition is that natural climate variability is any variation in climate not resulting from human influences, such as increasing atmospheric greenhouse ...