Climate change is a long-term alteration in temperature and typical weather patterns in a place. Climate change could refer to a particular location or the planet as a whole. Climate change has been connected with damaging weather events such as more frequent and more intense hurricanes, floods, downpours, and winter storms. Together with expanding ocean waters due to rising temperatures melting polar ice, the resulting rise in sea level has begun to damage coastlines as a result of increased flooding and erosion. The cause of current climate change is largely human activity, like burning fossil fuels, like natural gas, oil, and coal. Burning these materials releases what are called greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere. There, these gases trap heat from the sun’s rays inside the atmosphere causing Earth’s average temperature to rise.