Fact check: Climate change and yearly seasonal patterns are different weather phenomena

The claim: Post implies climate change is the same as seasons changing

A March 20 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) implies yearly seasonal trends in weather are the same as climate change.

"I'm old enough to remember when 'climate change' was called 'SEASONS,'" reads the post's text.

Commenters also connected the two phenomena together, including one that said, "YES IT’S STILL SEASONS! Airheads think it’s caused by cow belching .. or that the United States can have a good effect on it by doing things like bankrupting the country."

It was shared 300 times in four days.

Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks

Our rating: Missing context

The implied claim is wrong. Climate change and seasons are not the same. Climate change refers to long-term shifts in weather and atmospheric conditions, and a wide array of measurements and observations show a long-term warming trend caused by humans. Seasons are part of a yearly cycle based on the position of the Earth in relation to the sun.

Climate change and seasons refer to different phenomena

While climate change and seasons both involve temperature and weather fluctuations, they are not the same.

"Climate is often considered to be the average of weather over the span of decades to hundreds of years," Karin Gleason, a monitoring section chief at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information, previously told USA TODAY.

Recent climate change has been driven by burning fossil fuels, which produce more carbon dioxide than natural processes can remove. The excess CO2 acts as a blanket across the Earth and contributes to global warming, which has caused "sea ice loss, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves," the NASA website says.

Fact check: US annual temperatures are rising consistently and are driven by CO2

Seasons occur on a much shorter, yearly timescale. Unlike climate change, seasons are caused by the rotation of the Earth around the sun and the tilt of the Earth's axis.

As the Earth travels around the sun over the course of a year, one hemisphere is closer to the sun while the other is farther away from it, the National Weather Service notes.

"When the earth's axis points towards the sun, it is summer for that hemisphere," the weather service website says. "When the earth's axis points away, winter can be expected."

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment.

Our fact-check sources:

• Karin Gleason, March 2, Email exchange with USA TODAY

• National Weather Service, accessed March 24, Why Do We Have Seasons?

• NASA, accessed March 27, Global Warming vs. Climate Change | Facts – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

• NASA, accessed March 27, Effects | Facts – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

• NASA, accessed March 27, What is the greenhouse effect? – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

• NASA, accessed March 27, Causes | Facts – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

• NWS, accessed March 24-27, Why Do We Have Seasons?

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Climate change and seasonal patterns are not the same