(CNN) Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue cited weather patterns and said "it rained yesterday, it's a nice pretty day today" when asked about the cause of the global climate crisis in an interview with CNN.

Perdue joins President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence as the latest senior administration official to question the near universal consensus in the scientific community that the global climate crisis is man-made.

Perdue told CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich in the interview released Tuesday that "we don't know" the cause of climate change, adding, "and obviously scientists -- many scientists believe that it's human caused, other scientists believe it's not," Perdue

"So if it's not human caused, then what is it?" Yurkevich asked.

"You know, I think it's weather patterns, frankly. And you know, and they change, as I said. It rained yesterday, it's a nice pretty day today. So the climate does change in short increments and in long increments," Perdue responded.