See also:
International standards and resources
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a glossary of terms(Opens in a new tab/window). Note that many terms in this glossary do not comply with Australian editorial conventions, particularly in relation to the use of capital letters, so the glossary should be used with caution.
Australian conventions and resources
The Bureau of Meteorology(Opens in a new tab/window) and CSIRO (Opens in a new tab/window)publish information about climate change in Australia.
Terms to watch out for:
climate change, climate variability, global warming, global change, greenhouse effect
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Use initial capitals for the names of IPCC working groups and reports:
Working Group I IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)
Did you know? See Writing about evidence for background relating to the IPCC’s classification of evidence.
Use initial capitals for formal terms:
Last Glacial Maximum Last Millennium International Polar Year 2007–2009
Use lower case for generic terms:
Earth system models (ESMs) global climate model [or general circulation model] (GCM)
Reminder. Initial capitals are used only for formal names. Informal and collective (plural) references to the same item do not need capitals. See Capital letters for further information on when to use capitals.
Greenhouse gases
Greenhouse gases (GHGs) absorb and emit radiation in Earth’s atmosphere, leading to a greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is necessary – without it, Earth’s average temperature would be much colder. However, increasing the greenhouse effect by increasing the levels of GHGs in the atmosphere is contributing to climate change.
Use lower case for the names of GHGs:
carbon dioxide methane nitrous oxide chlorofluorocarbon hydrofluorocarbon water vapour short-lived tropospheric ozone
For publications for a general audience, the names of other gases should be spelt out in full. For more technical publications, they can be shortened to chemical formulas:
carbon dioxide or CO2 not CO2, CO2
methane or CH4
nitrous oxide or N2O
ozone or O3
water vapour or H2O
See Chemical compounds for more information on presenting chemical names.
NOx is a generic term for nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, or nitrogen oxides. Note that the x is lower case, subscripted and italic; other variations (e.g. NOx) are not correct.
Chlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons are groups of compounds that can be referred to in their shortened forms:
If shortened forms for chemical compouinds are used, identify them in full at first use in the text:
GHG emissions are generally reported as parts per million (ppm) or parts per billion (ppb) (see Relative quantities). The carbon dioxide equivalent is often displayed as CO2 equivalents (CO2-e) and is often reported as parts per million by volume (ppmv), megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (MtCO2-e) or gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (GtCO2-e).
Reminder. Use lower case for the initialisms ppm, ppb and ppmv.
Use a lower case, italic p for the unit ‘partial pressure of CO2’:
pCO2
Emissions is generally plural when referring to GHGs:
carbon dioxide emissions emissions targets