Defining Climate
Climatology
-Study of Earth's climate and the factors that cause past, present, and future climatic changes
-Climate describes the long term weather patterns of an area
-Climate variations of temperature, precipitation, wind, and other weather variables
Normals
-Normal are the areas standard values
-Normal dates are temperatures, rainfall, wind speed and direction, humidity, and air pressure
-Normal are measure monthly for about 30 years
Limitations of Normals
-Weather condition on any given day might differ widely from normal
-Normal temperatures may never be the given normal of the area
-Climate is to region, while normal are for a specific place where the meteorological data is collected
Cause of Climate
-Differences in latitude, topography, lakes and oceans, moisture, global wind patterns, ocean currents, and air masses
Latitude
-Earth's tilt and latitude vary on how much sunlight and heat an area gets
-Some places on earth are very cold and frigid due to the latitude they are at while some are very warm and humid
-Some places have a lot of rainfall while some are very dry due to droughts
Topographic Affects
-Water heats up and cools down more slowly than land
-many coastal regions are cooler in the winter than they are in the summer
- Inland areas have similar latitudes
Air Masses
-Two of the main causes of weather are the movement and interaction of air masses
- Air masses also affect climate
-Air masses have a distinct origin cause by primarily by differences in the amount of solar radiation