What is climate?

Online enyclopedia and dictionary of weather terms for the school classroom or college. Book quality descriptions that make the science of meterology understandable, even to kids

HOME	CLOUD/PRECIP FCST MOVIE	TEMPERATURE FCST MOVIE	2005 HURRICANES
NATIONAL RADAR	WATCHES & WARNINGS	STORM REPORTS	2007 HURRICANES

What is climate?

"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.

Interesting facts:

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".

and NOW at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble ...some things your teacher probably never told you about... (See book covers, and first page of each chapter.) more by Roy Spencer: Global Warming and Nature's Thermostat


Get your Weather, without the annoying popups, from by ZIP code or City, State	New! from WeatherStreet.com STUNNING TRUE-COLOR SATELLITE IMAGES

WeatherQuestions.com home

info@weatherstreet.com