WEATHER

AND CLIMAT

E

DANIEL PORTELL

I3.02

WHAT IS THE

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WEATHER

AND CLIMATE?

What Is the Difference Between Weather and Climate?It’s a sweltering midsummer day. “It must be global warming,” mutters someone. But is it the Earth’s changing climate that has made the day so warm? Or, is it just the weather that is so unbearable?

Weather Weather is the mix of events that happen each day in our atmosphere including temperature, rainfall and humidity. Weather is not the same everywhere. Perhaps it is hot, dry and sunny today where you live, but in other parts of the world it is cloudy, raining or even snowing. Everyday, weather events are recorded and predicted by meteorologists worldwide.

Climate Climate in your place on the globe controls the weather where you live. Climate is the average weather pattern in a place over many years. So, the climate of Antarctica is quite different than the climate of a tropical island. Hot summer days are quite typical of climates in many regions of the world, even without the affects of global warming.

DRAMATIC WEATHER EVENTS ARE NATURAL EARTH PROCESSES AND OCCUR AROUND THE WORLD EVERY DAY. SINCE THEIR IMPACT ON HUMANS AND THE ENVIRONMENT CAN BE QUITE EXTREME, IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW WHAT CAUSES THESE EVENTS AND HOW PEOPLE CAN REMAIN SAFE WHEN FACED WITH THEM. HOWEVER, WE DO NOT HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS ABOUT HOW AND WHY DRAMATIC WEATHER EVENTS UNFOLD AS THEY DO. THUS, RESEARCHERS STUDY THESE VARIED PHENOMENA WITH A VARIETY OF TECHNIQUES RANGING FROM COMPUTER MODELING TO STORM CHASING.

Weather

WILD WEATHERS

Hurricanes and typhoons

Tornadoes and waterspouts

The only type of severe weather event that we name individually, these are among Earth’s largest and fiercest storms. Each storm is able to, for a week or more, travel thousands of miles stirring seas, toppling trees, and leveling buildings.

 

Called tornadoes over land and waterspouts over ocean, these wild weather events churn air at the fastest speeds ever recorded on Earth. While they are often short-lived, often only existing for a few minutes, the intense winds and flying debris from tornadoes can destroy everything in their path.

 

WILD WEATHERS

Thunderstorms Blizzards

These storms are common in the spring and summer when there is warm air near the ground and cool air above. Small thunderstorms may only exist for an hour while large Super cell storms can last for several hours spawning tornadoes, hail, intense lightning, and flash flooding.

 

Waking up in the morning to find a fresh white blanket of snow coating the ground may be commonplace in many areas, occurring several times each winter, yet it remains an exciting surprise since predicting winter storms is not easy.

CLIMATES WILL CHANGE IF THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THEM FLUCTUATE. TO CHANGE CLIMATE ON A GLOBAL SCALE, EITHER THE AMOUNT OF HEAT THAT IS LET INTO THE SYSTEM CHANGES, OR THE AMOUNT OF HEAT THAT IS LET OUT OF THE SYSTEM CHANGES. FOR INSTANCE, WARMING CLIMATES ARE EITHER DUE TO INCREASED HEAT LET INTO THE EARTH OR A DECREASE IN THE AMOUNT OF HEAT THAT IS LET OUT OF THE ATMOSPHERE.

CLIMATE

Climate encompasses the statistics of, atmospheric pressure, wind, precipitation, atmospheric particle temperature, humidity count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods. Climate can be contrasted to weather, which is the present condition of these elements and their variations over shorter periods. A region's climate is generated by the climate system, which has five components: atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, land surface, and biosphere. The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, terrain, and altitude, as well as nearby water bodies and their currents. Climates can be classified according to the average and the typical ranges of different variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. Paleo climatology is the study of ancient climates. Since direct observations of climate are not available before the 19th century, paleo climates are inferred from proxy variables that include non-biotic evidence such as sediments found in lake beds and ice cores, and biotic evidence such as tree rings and coral. Climate models are mathematical models of past, present and future climates. Climate change may occur over long and short timescales from a variety of factors; recent warming is discussed in global warming.

THE WATER CYCLE, ALSO KNOWN AS THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE OR H2O CYCLE, DESCRIBES THE CONTINUOUS MOVEMENT OF WATER ON, ABOVE AND BELOW THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH. WATER CAN CHANGE STATES AMONG LIQUID, VAPOR, AND SOLID AT VARIOUS PLACES IN THE WATER CYCLE. ALTHOUGH THE BALANCE OF WATER ON EARTH REMAINS FAIRLY CONSTANT OVER TIME, INDIVIDUAL WATER MOLECULES CAN COME AND GO, IN AND OUT OF THE ATMOSPHERE. THE WATER MOVES FROM ONE RESERVOIR TO ANOTHER, SUCH AS FROM RIVER TO OCEAN, OR FROM THE OCEAN TO THE ATMOSPHERE, BY THE PHYSICAL PROCESSES OF EVAPORATION, CONDENSATION, PRECIPITATION, INFILTRATION, RUNOFF, AND SUBSURFACE FLOW. IN SO DOING, THE WATER GOES THROUGH DIFFERENT PHASES: LIQUID, SOLID, AND GAS.

WATER CYCLE

A depression in geology is a landform sunken or depressed below the surrounding area. Depressions may be formed by various mechanisms.Structural or tectonic related:Structural basin: A circular, syncline-like depression; a region of tectonic down warping ( associated with a subduction zone and island arc);Graben or rift valley: down dropped and typically linear depressions or basin created by rifting in a region under tensional tectonic forces.Pull apart basin caused by offset in a strike slip or transform fault (example: the Dead Sea area).Oceanic trench: a deep linear depression located in the ocean floor. Oceanic trenches are caused by the subduction (when one tectonic plate is pushed underneath another) of oceanic crust beneath either other oceanic crust or continental crust.Sedimentary related:Sedimentary basin: In sedimentology, an area thickly filled with sediment in which the weight of the sediment further depresses the floor of the basin.

DEPRESSIONS

ANTICYCLONEAn anticyclone (that is, opposite to a cyclone) is a weather phenomenon defined by the United States' National Weather Service's glossary as large-scale circulation of winds around a central region of high atmospheric pressure, clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere". Effects of surface-based anticyclones include clearing skies as well as cooler, drier air. Fog can also form overnight within a region of higher pressure. Mid- tropospheric systems, such as the subtropical ridge, deflect tropical cyclones around their periphery and cause a temperature inversion inhibiting free convection near their center, building up surface-based haze under their base. Anticyclones aloft can form within warm core lows, such as tropical cyclones, due to descending cool air from the backside of upper troughs, such as polar highs, or from large scale sinking, such as the subtropical ridge. Anticyclonic flow spirals in a clockwise direction in the Northern Hemisphere and anticlockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.

Observing and Recording Wind Speed and DirectionIn the first investigations of Climate and Weather, your

students developed a working concept of air—a gas material that surrounds the Earth, fills space and exerts pressure on its surroundings. In Weather 3, you will help them to develop a concept of moving air or wind. Based on observations of their surroundings and the behavior of a simple instrument they make themselves, your students will learn to report two properties of moving air; wind speed and direction.The idea that air reaches us from different directions at different times may also be new to young children. While they know wind occurs from time to time, they may not notice the different wind directions. It is also unlikely that they will associate different wind speeds and directions with particular weather patterns. Do storms always come from the same direction? Do high winds mean the weather is going to change? Do winds bring hot weather or cold weather, or both? These are some of the questions that young children may have never asked themselves because their focus in on how the wind is acting on them at a given moment, not over long periods of hours or days.

WEATHER PICS

CLIMATE PICS

THE

END