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What is climate?
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"Climate" is a very general term that has a variety of closely related meanings. Usually, "climate" refers to
the average, or typical, weather conditions observed over a long period of time for a given area.
For instance, the climate of Wisconsin in the winter is cold, with occasional snow. The climate of the
tropical oceans is warm and humid, with occasional showers or thunderstorms. Climate variations can occur
from year to year, or one decade to another, one century to another, or any longer time scale.
There is still alot of uncertainty about what causes climate variations, with some of the factors being: variations in the sun,
changes in ocean circulation, changes in land cover types, the production of greenhouse gases
by mankind's burning of fossil fuels, and
the role of man-made aerosols on cloud formation.
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| Interesting facts:
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| WHAT'S NATURAL AND WHAT'S MAN-MADE? The biggest
uncertainty in predicting future climate change, including global warming, is knowing what part of
observed climate change in the past is natural and what part is man-made. Since climate change occurs naturally,
we don't know how much of the 1 deg. F warming in the last century is due to mankind pumping greenhouse
gases into the atmosphere versus the Earth simply coming out of the "Little Ice Age".
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Dr. Roy W. Spencer:
GLOBAL WARMING: Manmade or Natural?
Now IN-STOCK at Amazon.com:
CLIMATE CONFUSION:
How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science,
Pandering Politicians, and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor
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