Studying Weather and

Climate

WEATHER AND CLIMATE

Weather is what the forecasters on the TV news predict each day. They tell people about the temperature, cloudiness, humidity, storms...

It is the mix of events that happens each day in our atmosphere.

Weather is not the same everywhere. It may be hot and sunny in one part of the world, but freezing and snowy in another.

WEATHER AND CLIMATE

Climate is the average weather in a place over many years. While the weather can change in just a few hours, climate takes hundreds, thousands, even millions of years to change.

Sometimes the climate of a place is described with graphs like this. They are known as climatograms.

CLIMATE

A number of factors influence the climates found around the globe. Some of them are:LatitudeAltitudeProximity to the sea

CLIMATE

Latitude is the

distance a region is

from the equator,

to the north or

south. A region's

latitude determines

how much solar

energy it receives

from the sun.

This is because the Earth

is tilted. This way, the

closer you are to the

Equator, the hotter the

climate is going to be.

CLIMATE

Altitude refers to the

vertical distance

between the lowest

point and the highest

point of an area. A

land's altitude is

calculated by measuring

the distance from sea

level to the highest

point.

As we go higher and

higher, the climate

becomes cooler.

CLIMATE

Distance from the

sea: land heats and

cools faster than

the sea. Therefore,

coastal areas have

a lower

temperature range

than those areas

inland.

On the coast winters are

mild and summers are cool.

In inland areas

temperatures are high in

the summer and cold in the

winter.

THE STUDY OF WEATHER AND CLIMATE

Weather stations have meteorological instruments

to get information about the weather conditions.

Some of these instruments are:

Thermometers Barometers Rain gauges (pluviometer

s)

Wind gauges (anemometers) and

weather vanes