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July 12

Global heating

The Guardian now prefers this term over "global warming" or "climate change".[1] Wiktionary doesn't have an entry at the moment (I added a request and gave the above link and a couple of related ones). I've seen the term in a few less mainstream outlets over the past few years. Does anyone know how to find the earliest attestations? Thanks. 173.228.123.207 (talk) 01:56, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth searching through these google ngrams results. Mikenorton (talk) 08:03, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How do they figure heating is different from warming? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:13, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not really a relevant question for the Language desk (try the car crash thread on the Science desk), but the OP did provide a link for you. Henry ^Flower 20:43, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This being the language desk, it's a totally appropriate question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:20, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Mikenorton, thanks, it goes back further than I realized. I wonder if any of the ngram hits were for things like "Optimizing a global heating capacity of an air conditioning system"[2] though. Bugs and Henry, the difference between "heating" and "warming" is in connotation, although as Bugs implies, the two words do have similar denotation. That seems relevant to the language desk to me. The Guardian article explains why they made the change. Think of comfortable warmth vs intolerable heat. I'll look at the science desk thread. 173.228.123.207 (talk) 21:32, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Down Here, when it's 45+ degrees (Celsius; = 113 Fahrenheit) in the shade, people are apt to say "It's quite warm today". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:50, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@JackofOz: Possibly the July 6 thread on #Quite ~~above~~ is relevant in the context of your comment... --CiaPan (talk) 23:10, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Quite. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:07, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

45 degrees is not 'quite ~~hot~~ warm' for me, it's sweltering. And I live in India! TotallyNotSarcasm [lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ] [kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 05:51, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The highest temperature ever recorded in the UK was 38.5°C in 2003. Humidity has a lot to do with how hot it "feels", a visitor from Alice Springs described 30°C in London as "unbearable". Alansplodge (talk) 11:42, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. So I assume Australia isn't quite as humid as India? TotallyNotSarcasm [lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ] [kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 01:34, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That would quite depend on if you're in an Australian desert or in a flooded billabong. And in much of India and Australia, whether it is monsoon season or not plays a major role. SinisterLefty (talk) 01:47, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's way more complex than that, as it would be in any large land mass. See Climate of Australia. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:59, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

- All I know about the Celsius scale, I learned by listening to "Beds Are Burning" in the 80s. Elizium23 (talk) 01:14, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We've gone through a few terms for it, getting slightly better each time. The term that's starting to gain dominance is "climate crisis." (That one already redirects to 'global warming,' I checked.) Temerarius (talk) 02:19, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]