# Climate Change **Domain:** Earth System Science **Doc Type:** Concept Node **Classification:** Infrastructure Concept **Maturity:** Foundational **Related:** [[wiki/Climate Science|Climate Science]], [[wiki/Climate Modeling|Climate Modeling]], [[wiki/Climate Systems|Climate Systems]], [[wiki/Renewable Energy|Energy Systems]], [[wiki/Human Ecology|Human Ecology]] --- ## Definition **Climate Change** refers to **long-term shifts in planetary temperature, precipitation, atmospheric composition, and oceanographic patterns resulting from increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, primarily carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion, which is changing the energy balance of Earth's climate system**. Change includes warming, regional precipitation shifts, sea level rise, and increased extreme weather intensity. --- ## General Context Climate change is established science: atmospheric CO₂ concentrations have risen from 280 ppm (preindustrial) to 420+ ppm (2023), temperatures have risen ~1.1°C since 1850, and impacts (melting ice, shifting ecosystems, extreme weather) are widely documented. The scientific consensus (97%+ of climate scientists) is that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are the primary cause. Climate change will continue even with emissions reductions due to atmospheric residence time of CO₂. --- ## Ecological Systems Context Climate change alters precipitation, temperature, and seasonality across ecosystems, forcing adaptive evolution or migration. Rates of change exceed many species' adaptive capacity, driving extinction. ## Civilizational-Intelligence Context [[articles/Climate Change Decoded Around Ecological Crisis|Climate Change Decoded Around Ecological Crisis]] treats climate change as a test of whether civilization can transform environmental feedback into reciprocal intelligence rather than denial, extraction or administrative containment. The article connects climate observation to [[wiki/Planetary Sensorium|Planetary Sensorium]], [[wiki/Human Resilience|Human Resilience]], [[wiki/Corrective Intelligence|Corrective Intelligence]] and [[wiki/Algorithmic Constitutionalism|Algorithmic Constitutionalism]]. Climate is both a physical process and the domain in which humanity developed its most mature infrastructure for sensing, modeling and coordinating under planetary uncertainty. --- ## Key Insight Climate change represents **the thermodynamic consequence of energy systems design**—not a natural fluctuation but an outcome of infrastructure choices that concentrate atmospheric carbon. --- ## See Also [[wiki/Climate Adaptation|Climate Adaptation]], [[wiki/Climate Justice|Climate Justice]], [[wiki/Climate Denial|Climate Denial]], [[wiki/Climate Finance|Climate Finance]], [[wiki/Climate Modeling Infrastructure|Climate Modeling Infrastructure]]