| Term: | Climate system |
| Definition: | The climate system is the highly complex system consisting of five major components: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the lithosphere, and the biosphere, and the interactions among them. The climate system evolves in time under the influence of its own internal dynamics and because of external forcings such as volcanic eruptions, solar variations, and anthropogenic forcings such as the changing composition of the atmosphere and land use change. |