It’s been a relatively mild January. On more than one occasion, I heard the term “spring-like.” I even heard one report of daffodils breaking ground. And as often happens during periods of mild winter weather, I get asked if it’s because of global warming.

Conversely, I often find people challenging the whole idea of global warming during prolonged periods of bitter cold and snow.

Yesterday, as I write this, was cloudy, with temperatures around 40 degrees F. Today it’s cooler, with freezing drizzle and sleet. That’s weather. When someone says, “It was snowing this morning, but the sun is shining this afternoon. And it’s warmed up quite a bit, but it sure is windy!” that’s weather. Weather is the short-term changes we see in temperature, clouds, precipitation, humidity and wind. In our region, weather can vary greatly from one day to the next, or even from hour to hour — certainly from season to season. Mark Twain is famously credited with having said, “If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.”

Climate, on the other hand, is the normal weather over a long period of time. It’s the average weather conditions in a particular location or region at a particular time of the year. Here in northern New York, summers are humid and warm, but not particularly hot. Winters are cold. Precipitation is common throughout the year. That’s climate. California’s Death Valley is recognized as the hottest place on earth and the driest place in North America. That’s climate.

Global warming is the term used to describe an increase in the earth’s atmospheric and oceanic temperatures. It’s changes in the long-term averages of typical daily weather; changes that last for an extended period of time.

I believe that the phrase “climate change,” an idiom not everyone is comfortable with, would be better-understood if it was called “climate pattern change.” When I say, “The Earth is getting warmer,” which it is — the Earth’s average temperature has risen by 1.5 degrees F over the last century and is projected to rise another 0.5 to 8.6 degrees F by the end of this century — I’m talking about both global warming and global climate change, because global warming is causing global climate change. Or more precisely, global warming is causing global climate patterns to change.

As a result of rising global temperatures, extreme weather events — more intense rain storms and flooding, droughts, and frequent and unrelenting heat waves — are becoming more and more common around the world.

In 2016, extreme weather events in this country included Hurricane Matthew, a formidable storm that brought flooding, destructive winds and an ocean surge up to 8 feet above normal to communities along the East Coast from Florida to North Carolina, where the storm was blamed for 28 deaths. Investment bank Goldman Sachs estimated economic losses from property damage across the affected states at $10 billion. The storm damaged or destroyed more than 1 million structures.

Between Aug. 10 and 17, nearly 30 inches of rain fell in parts of southern Louisiana. Thirteen people died, and 60,000 homes were destroyed. Rainfall in Baton Rouge peaked at 6 inches per hour. Interestingly enough, the rain was not caused by a hurricane or tropical storm. It was the result of a weak low-pressure system, fueled by warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures, which stalled out and lingered over the Gulf Coast.

In October and November, following months of exceptionally dry conditions, more than 30 large wildfires spread quickly across interior portions of six southeastern states, burning over 100,000 acres of land. The most horrific fire killed 14 people and destroyed more than 2,400 structures in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance stated that the Sevier County-Gatlinburg wildfires resulted in 3,947 claims and an estimated $842,245,997.98 in combined residential and commercial property losses.

Last January, a massive blizzard nicknamed “Snowzilla” buried much of the East Coast from the Carolinas to Massachusetts, killing at least 55 people in 10 states and the District of Columbia, and causing economic losses estimated at as much as $3 billion. JFK and LaGuardia airports in New York City recorded record snowfalls of 30.5 and 27.9 inches, respectively. A one-day record of 26.8 inches of snow fell in Central Park. Baltimore, Maryland, received 29.2 inches, a record. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, saw 30.2 inches, a record. Allentown, Pennsylvania, saw 31.9 inches, a two-day record. And Philadelphia recorded 22.4 inches, that city’s fourth biggest snowstorm on record. A raging ocean caused historic, icy tidal flooding along parts of the New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland coast. More than 9.25 feet of floodwater was reported at North Wildwood, New Jersey, 8.98 feet at Cape May, 9.27 feet at Lewes, Delaware.

I could go on.

There’s no doubt about it! Rising global temperatures have been accompanied by changes in weather and climate around the world. That’s undeniable. Still, I’m often asked whether or not the changes we’re seeing are the result of human activity. And I guess that’s a fair question. After all, the sun is the primary source of energy driving Earth’s climate system, and changes in the sun’s energy output have played a role in past climate changes.

My answer is this: There is nearly universal consensus within the scientific community that climate change is man-made. Direct satellite measurements of the sun’s energy reaching Earth, which have been monitored since the late 1970s, show no net increase in the sun’s energy output. Yet at the same time, global surface temperatures have increased. What’s more, climate models, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and researchers at Cornell University, which include the effects of the sun’s variable brightness in their calculations, can’t reproduce the observed temperature trends over the past century or more without including a rise in human-emitted greenhouse gases.

2016 marked the first time in the modern era of global warming that the Earth’s global temperature surpassed a previous record three years in a row. Temperatures are heading toward levels that many experts believe will, or already do, pose a profound threat to both the natural world and to human civilization. On May 19, the town of Phalodi, India, recorded the hottest day in that nation’s history: 123.8 degrees F. And last fall, temperatures ran 20 to 30 degrees F above normal across large expanses of the Arctic Ocean, a situation that Gavin A. Schmidt, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, called “ridiculously off the chart.”