1. New Unit!
Climate Change

2. West Coast Wildfires

3. Weather and Climate

4. 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

5. 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%.

6. What Causes Weather?

7. Interactions between water and air and energy from the Sun

8. 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

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

10. 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.

11. 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)

12. Climate Zones
Areas in the same climate zone have similar temperatures, precipitation and plant communities

13. What is the difference between weather & climate?

14. 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