New Unit! Climate Change

West Coast Wildfires https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2017/smoke-from-british-columbia-fires-heading-to-the-coast

Weather and Climate

Describing the Weather When you describe the conditions outside on a particular day, you are describing the weather. Meteorologists usually provide the Following information when describing weather: • Temperature • Type and amount of precipitation • Wind speed • Relative humidity (amount of water in the Air compared to max. amount possible at that temp.) • Atmospheric pressure • Fog, mist or cloud cover

Example A description you may hear on the news or weather network would contain a combination of the above. The weather on a summer day: a high of 25°C, sunny with cloud cover, with a 40% chance of rain, wind from the west at 15 km/h and a relative humidity of 40%.

What Causes Weather?

Interactions between water and air and energy from the Sun

Predicting the Weather Meteorologists gather information on weather around the world and use this information to forecast the weather for specific areas. Methods of collecting data include: • Weather stations • Aircraft • Weather balloons • Satellites

What is Climate? Climate is the usual pattern of weather in a region over a long period of time.

Climate To determine climate of a region, climatologists collect weather measurements made over 30 years or more and average the results. The climate of a region gives a range of temperatures that you might expect at a certain time of year. The climate of a region determines the types of plants and animals that live there. https://ss9geography.wikispaces.com/file/view/Calgary_Climate.png/229619774/395x242/Calgary_Climate.png

Factors Affecting Climate The climate in a region is caused by a variety of factors: • Distance from the equator (latitude) • Presence of large bodies of water • Presence of ocean and air currents • Land formations • Height above sea level (altitude)

Climate Zones Areas in the same climate zone have similar temperatures, precipitation and plant communities https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/ClimateMap_World.png

What is the difference between weather & climate?

What is the difference between weather & climate? Weather: describes the atmospheric conditions over a short period of time – an hour, a day, or even a week. Climate: describes the typical weather you can expect in a region based on weather data gathered over many years

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