page_title: Climate variability and change
section_title: Ocean-atmosphere variability
hierarchical_section_title: Climate variability and change / Causes / Internal variability / Ocean-atmosphere variability
caption_attribution_description: During cold La Niña episodes the normal patterns of tropical precipitation and atmospheric circulation become disrupted. Related image: Image:El Nino regional impacts.gif
context_page_description: Climate variability includes all the variations in the climate that last longer than individual weather events, whereas the term climate change only refers to those variations that persist for a longer period of time, typically decades or more. In the time since the industrial revolution the climate has increasingly been affected by human activities that are causing global warming and climate change.
  The climate system receives nearly all of its energy from the sun. The climate system also radiates energy to outer space. The balance of incoming and outgoing energy, and the passage of the energy through the climate system, determines Earth's energy budget. When the incoming energy is greater than the outgoing energy, earth's energy budget is positive and the climate system is warming. If more energy goes out, the energy budget is negative and earth experiences cooling.
  The energy moving through Earth's climate system finds expression in weather, varying on geographic scales and time. Long-term averages and variability of weather in a region constitute the region's climate.
context_section_description: The ocean and atmosphere can work together to spontaneously generate internal climate variability that can persist for years to decades at a time. These variations can affect global average surface temperature by redistributing heat between the deep ocean and the atmosphere and/or by altering the cloud/water vapor/sea ice distribution which can affect the total energy budget of the earth.
caption: La Niña impacts