There are past and present public debates over certain aspects of climate change: how much has occurred in modern times, what causes it, what its effects will be, and what action should be taken to curb it now or later, and so forth.
In the scientific literature, there is a very strong consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases.
Disputes over the key scientific facts of global warming are more prevalent in the media than in the scientific literature, where such issues are treated as resolved, and such disputes are more prevalent in the United States and Australia than globally.
Climate change deniers and "skeptics" tend to cherry-pick data or studies, and then trump up any scientific discussions or apparent discrepancies that match with their agenda.
For example, climatologist Kevin E. Trenberth has published widely on the topic of climate variability and has exposed flaws in the publications of other scientists.