CLIMATE AND WEATHER
by Antonio C. Antonio
February 2, 2015
Have you ever wondered why “climate change” is not referred
to as “weather change”? Or why a
“weather bureau” is not called a “climate bureau”? This could just be useless wordplay but these
words “climate and weather”, often used interchangeably or in the same sense,
are two terms that are definitive and exact in their meaning. Although they are synonyms, they have
different applications.
CLIMATE is defined as: (1) the average long-term pattern of
weather in a particular area or region.
Climate normally undergoes a cyclic change over a longer period of time
covering years, decades, centuries or millennia; (2) the average course or
condition in a particular place or area over a period of time exhibited by
temperature, wind velocity and precipitation; and, (3) the prevailing set of
environmental conditions on a particular region on earth characterizing a long
period of time. On the other hand,
WEATHER is defined as the state of the atmosphere with respect to heat or cold,
wetness or dryness, calm or storm, clearness or cloudiness over a relatively
short period of time.
Aside from application, the main and obvious difference
between the two terms is the period of time whereby they occur… shorter for
weather and longer for climate. Most
people think of weather in terms of temperature, humidity, precipitation,
cloudiness, brightness, visibility, wind, and atmospheric pressure (as in high
or low pressure). Weather is what’s
happening in the atmosphere on any given time in a specific place. (For more details on “The Atmosphere”, please
click on this link: http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-atmosphere.html.) Climate is the average of these weather
ingredients over a long period of time.
As Mark Twain and Robert Heinlein said, “Climate is what you expect;
weather is what you get.”
Next time you find these terms in use, you would now have a
better idea what they are… climate and weather.
Just my little
thoughts…
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