Global warming didn’t go anywhere. It accelerated. The year 2024 was the hottest year since record-keeping began in 1880, with global temperatures reaching 1.28°C above the 20th-century average. What did change is the language: scientists and media outlets increasingly use “climate change” because rising surface temperature is only one piece of a much larger picture.
Why the Name Changed
The term “global warming” entered mainstream conversation in June 1988, when NASA scientist James Hansen testified before Congress about rising temperatures. For years it was the go-to phrase. But scientists always recognized it was incomplete. Global warming technically refers to the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature caused by greenhouse gases. Climate change covers that plus everything else those gases affect: rainfall patterns, sea levels, storm intensity, ocean chemistry, and ice loss.
Changes to precipitation and sea level are likely to have greater human impact than higher temperatures alone. That’s why organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and NASA favor “global climate change” as the more scientifically accurate term. The phenomenon didn’t stop. The vocabulary grew up.
The “Pause” That Wasn’t
Between 1998 and 2013, the rate of surface temperature increase slowed, and some commentators declared global warming had paused. This so-called “hiatus” became a popular talking point for those skeptical of climate science. But the slowdown was misleading, because surface air temperature is not the whole story.
More than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases enters the ocean, where it gets moved away from the surface and into deeper water. During those 15 years, the heat didn’t vanish. It was redistributed. As NCEI scientist Tim Boyer put it, the amount of heat “missing” from the atmosphere was extremely small compared to the heat added to the ocean in the same period. Natural variability in ocean circulation patterns temporarily masked what was happening at the surface, but the planet’s total heat budget kept climbing. Once that redistribution shifted, surface temperatures surged again, smashing records in 2023 and then again in 2024.
Where the Numbers Stand Now
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa observatory, reached about 430 parts per million in early 2026. Before the industrial era, that number hovered around 280 ppm. That’s a roughly 54% increase in the gas most responsible for trapping heat.
The warming rate has held at about 0.2°C per decade. At that pace, the IPCC projected that global temperatures would cross the critical 1.5°C threshold above pre-industrial levels sometime between 2030 and 2052. The 2024 measurement of 1.28°C above the 20th-century baseline suggests that timeline is on track or ahead of schedule.
The Ocean Is Absorbing Most of the Heat
Nearly 90% of the extra energy from human-caused warming is stored in the ocean. From 2023 to 2024 alone, the heat content of the upper 2,000 meters of ocean increased by 16 zettajoules. To put that in perspective, that single year’s increase was roughly 40 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2023. The ocean covers 70% of Earth’s surface and acts as a massive heat sink, which is why surface air temperatures can fluctuate year to year while the planet’s overall energy imbalance keeps growing.
This ocean heat has consequences you can feel. Warmer oceans fuel stronger hurricanes, accelerate ice sheet melting from below, and contribute to marine heatwaves that devastate coral reefs and fisheries.
Arctic Ice Keeps Declining
Arctic sea ice hit its annual minimum on September 11, 2024, at 4.28 million square kilometers. That ranked as the seventh lowest extent in the 46-year satellite record. More telling than any single year’s ranking: the lowest 18 Arctic sea ice extents ever recorded all occurred in the last 18 years. There is no recovery trend. The long-term trajectory is a steady loss of ice, with each decade showing less coverage than the one before.
The Financial Toll Is Growing
Weather-related disasters are getting more expensive. In 2023, global disaster losses totaled $250 billion, with weather events accounting for 76% of that figure. The year before came in at $270 billion. These numbers capture only the insured and directly measurable costs. Crop failures, displacement, supply chain disruptions, and health impacts push the real toll higher, particularly in lower-income countries where losses often go uncounted.
What Changed and What Didn’t
The core physics hasn’t changed since scientists first described the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap heat. Humans release those gases by burning fossil fuels. The planet warms. What has changed is the sheer volume of evidence. Satellites track ice loss in real time. Ocean sensors measure heat thousands of meters deep. Temperature records fall with increasing regularity.
Global warming didn’t disappear. It became global climate change because the problem turned out to be bigger than a thermometer could capture. The warming is still the engine, but the effects now reach into every system on the planet: oceans, ice sheets, weather patterns, ecosystems, and economies.