Climate change is a phenomenon of systemic alteration in the global climate patterns caused by increasing concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. This shifts the global and regional weather patterns, resulting in longer-lasting and more extreme weather events due to the climate being out of balance. As a result of climate change, the global mean surface temperature is increasing, altering global and local hydrological cycles, disrupting global and local ecological systems, resulting in associated displacement of both animal and human populations.

See also: carrying capacity, systems change, spiral dynamics, contextual process, complex system