What term refers to rising temperatures around the world?

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Global warming is the term that directly names the long-term rise in Earth’s average surface temperature across the globe. It specifically describes the warming trend itself, which is largely driven by human-made greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide.

Climate change covers a broader set of changes in the climate system—such as altered precipitation patterns, more extreme weather, melting ice, and sea level rise—so it’s less precise about the temperature increase alone. Temperature rise is vague and can refer to any local or temporary warming, not the global trend. Global heating is less standard and less widely used in science.

So, global warming is the best answer because it precisely identifies the worldwide increase in temperature that results from human activities, while the other terms describe broader or less specific ideas.