Weather is short-term and impossible to predict far in advance.
Climate is the average weather over a long period of time.

Weather is not climate

A cold day or month or even a year doesn't mean the climate is not heating up. However, a changing climate can make certain extreme events more likely. Climate change will make heavy rainfall even heavier, and heatwaves hotter and more frequent.

Weather is affected by climate

Hurricanes, heatwaves, floods, and droughts have happened before and will happen again. 
The question is not if it would have happened without climate change. Instead, we should be asking what we're doing to the climate.

The right question

Climate change is seldom the only factor contributing to the cost of natural disasters. Climate change will result in more wildfires, but how we manage land will contribute to the severity.
Warming sea surface temperature may cause stronger hurricanes, but where we live and build will determine the damage they cause.

It’s never just climate

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<img src="https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/24B544A8-87A2-459D-99F89D64309F2A6C_small.jpg"><h4>Kate Marvel</h4>
<a href="http://www.marvelclimate.com">Kate Marvel</a> is a climate scientist at Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. She received a PhD in theoretical physics from Cambridge University and has worked at Stanford University, the Carnegie Institution, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Her writing has appeared in Scientific American, On Being, and Nautilus Magazine, and she's given talks in places as diverse as comedy clubs, prisons, and the <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/kate_marvel_can_clouds_buy_us_more_time_to_solve_climate_change">TED main stage</a>.
Credit: Nick Higgins
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Kate Marvel Kate Marvel is a climate scientist at Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. She received a PhD in theoretical physics from Cambridge University and has worked at Stanford University, the Carnegie Institution, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Don't Be Fooled: Weather Is Not Climate

Weather is not climate

Weather is affected by climate

The right question

It’s never just climate

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