Gold Ball?

[Kerry27]

Hi,
I'm a new player in civ, and am currently playing civ3.
It's about 1860ad and in my info box in the top left corner this strange gold ball has popped up like a sun almost. What does this mean. Sorry If it sound like a dumb Q? but its not in the book.

Thanks!

 

[AlanH]

Welcome

It means that global warming has started, so you'll see random events where grass turns to plains, plains to desert, and floodplains dry out. This can cause problems if you've managed to get a city to a specific size and shield production to just manage to turn out a tank per turn or whatever. One tile changing can cause a citizen to starve and stymie your carefully engineered city.