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Last edited 16 Apr 2025

Climate variability

Global Warming of 1.5 ºC, Glossary, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2018, defines climate variability as: ‘…variations in the mean state and other statistics (such as standard deviations, the occurrence of extremes, etc.) of the climate on all spatial and temporal scales beyond that of individual weather events. Variability may be due to natural internal processes within the climate system (internal variability), or to variations in natural or anthropogenic external forcing (external variability).’

Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Science Basis, Annex VII: Glossary, written by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and published by Cambridge University Press in 2023, defines climate variability as:

Deviations of climate variables from a given mean state (including the occurrence of extremes, etc.) at all spatial and temporal scales beyond that of individual weather events. Variability may be intrinsic, due to fluctuations of processes internal to the climate system (internal variability), or extrinsic, due to variations in natural or anthropogenic external forcing (forced variability). See also Climate change and Modes of climate variability.

Decadal variability

Decadal variability refers to climate variability on decadal time scales. See also Pacific Decadal Variability (PDV), Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation/Variability (AMO/AMV) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) (under Pacific Decadal Variability (PDV)).

Internal variability

Fluctuations of the climate dynamical system when subject to a constant or periodic external forcing (such as the annual cycle).

Natural variability

Natural variability refers to climatic fluctuations that occur without any human influence, that is, internal variability combined with the response to external natural factors such as volcanic eruptions, changes in solar activity and, on longer time scales, orbital effects and plate tectonics.