(WC) Understanding Weather and Climate Lesson
Understanding Weather and Climate
People often talk about climate and weather as the same thing. However, they are quite different and these differences have important implications for how we predict changes in weather and climate.
What is the difference between weather and climate?
Weather is the air temperature, cloud cover, precipitation, wind, moisture content, and air pressure at any particular time in any particular place. Weather reflects the prevailing conditions of the air masses overlying the land and seas over the entire globe.
Climate is the overall picture of weather during periods of seasons or years. Historical records (including geological and recorded history) show us how the climate of the Earth has changed throughout its history.
- Weather describes short-term changes in different factors in the troposphere such as amount of sunlight, barometric pressure, cloud cover, precipitation, humidity, and temperature in a specific place at a specific time.
- Climate describes the long-term physical characteristics of the troposphere in a given place. Climate is determined by looking at weather patterns over a long period of time.
"You pick your vacation destination based on the climate but pack your suitcase based on the weather."
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Climate |
Weather |
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Definition |
Describes the average conditions expected at a specific place at a given time. A region's climate is generated by the climate system, which has five components: atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, land surface, and biosphere.
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Describes the atmospheric conditions at a specific place at a specific point in time. Weather generally refers to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity. |
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Components |
Climate may include precipitation, temperature, humidity, sunshine, wind velocity, phenomena such as fog, frost, and hail storms over a long period of time.
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Weather includes sunshine, rain, cloud cover, winds, hail, snow, sleet, freezing rain, flooding, blizzards, ice storms, thunderstorms, steady rains from a cold front or warm front, excessive heat, heat waves and more. |
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Forecast |
By aggregates of weather statistics over periods of 30 years.
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By collecting meteorological data, like air temperature, pressure, humidity, solar radiation, wind speeds and direction etc. |
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Determining factors |
Aggregating weather statistics over periods of 30 years ("climate normals").
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Real-time measurements of atmospheric pressure, temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity, precipitation, cloud cover, and other variables.
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Study |
Climatology |
Meteorology |
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Time period |
Measured over a long period.
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Measured for short term. |
The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather changes on a daily basis. It gives the current atmospheric conditions of a place over a short-term (minutes to weeks). While on the other hand, climate describes the typical weather (state) a location will have over a long period of time (more of a permanent state).
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