When 'Global Warming' Became 'Climate Change'

The term "global warming," which describes an increase in the Earth's average temperature surface due to greenhouse gas emissions, is widely believed to have been coined in 1975 by Columbia University geochemist Wallace Broecker, according to NASA. Meanwhile, "climate change," which describes a long-term change in the Earth's climate, appeared a few years later in a 1979 National Academy of Science study on carbon dioxide.