Wither the Atmosphere and Earth’s Climates?

After a series of climatic anomalies from about 1968 onwards, with serious consequences on human welfare and economy, the problem of man-made or man-triggered climatic variability has reached general attention. For the time being we ought perhaps to avoid the term ‘climatic change’, which should be restricted to major changes (as between an ice-age and a warm interglacial period), although this is a matter of definition and of the time-scale under consideration. Rather do we prefer the term ‘climatic fluctuations’ for short-living (e.g. interannual) deviations, and the term ‘climatic variation’ for such changes as have been observed, using 30-years-averages, since the beginning of instrumental observations—;that is, after A.D.. 1650.