By Michelle Sampson , Victoria Gray , Michaella White, Liz Bellmickley What's Weather?

What’s Climate and What’s Weather? Climate-The weather conditions of a region as temperature and humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds. Weather-The state of the atmosphere with respect to wind temp. and cloudiness and moisture and pressure.

Climate Weather Similarities Same- Weather conditions, Weather, humidity, and wind temp. Weather The state of atmosphere Examples Rain, Sun , Snow, lightning, tornados, hurricanes. Climate Slick on roads Heavy fog Slick bridges or over passes.

What could be causing global warming change? Fossil Fuels would be causing global warming change. Cutting down trees could cause global warming change.

How has the change in climate created a change in weather patterns? Changing weather patterns across the U.S., from dwindling ice cover in Alaska to increasing frequency of North Atlantic storms, all confirm the reality of climate change.

Pick a biome and figure out if the overall temperature and precipitation has changed in the past 150 years: deciduous forest, rain forest, desert, boreal/ coniferous forest, tundra, or polar. The desert regions of North America are largely mountain-barrier deserts, precipitation is prevented from reaching them by the Sierra Nevada’s, the Coast Range and the Rockies. There are a large number of cloudless days, and the solar radiation is intense. Hot dry winds blow down out of the mountains causing dust storms which have a definite impact on the life forms there. We find that vegetation, plant size, and plant diversity are all positively correlated to precipitation. Where there is little rainfall all of those characteristics decline. The desert is also a relatively stable habitat which also results in little species variation, the desert plants that have succeeded are where they are due to adaptations to their specific environment. The correlation of species’ diversity with rainfall also exists for animal groups such as ants, grasshoppers, and mammals. Surprisingly one group does not follow this parameter, reptile diversity is at its peak in North American deserts.

undesirable impacts on species and ecosystems. How does the changing climate impact biota: turtles, polar bears, penguins, migratory birds, humans, food production? The IPCC indicated that above a 2°C increase in global mean surface temperature the risk of adverse impacts will rapidly increase. This study suggests this level is too high. Even with small global temperature changes, there will be disproportionately large changes in the frequency and magnitude of extreme events, and consequently unpredictable and undesirable impacts on species and ecosystems.