Presentation. 6th grade. The weather in different places

The Weather In Different Places

Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get

Though they are closely related, weather and climate aren’t the same thing.

Climate is what you expect.

Weather is what actually happens.

Take a moment and think about  the weather today  where you are.

Is it normal or typical?

Is it what you’d expect?

If it’s been cool the past few days but the temperature is climbing today,

is that weather or climate?

Are weather and climate the same thing? Though they are closely related, weather and climate aren’t the same thing.

What exactly is weather?

More specifically, weather is the mix of events that happen each day in  our atmosphere . Even though there’s only one atmosphere on Earth, the weather isn’t the same all around the world. Weather is different in different parts of the world and changes over minutes, hours, days, and weeks.

Most weather happens in the part of Earth’s atmosphere that is closest to the ground—called the troposphere. And, there are many different factors that can change the atmosphere in a certain area like  air pressure , temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and lots of other things. Together, they determine what the weather is like at a given time and location.

What exactly is climate?

Whereas weather refers to short-term changes in the atmosphere, climate describes what the weather is like over a long period of time in a specific area. Different regions can have different climates. To describe the climate of a place, we might say what the temperatures are like during  different seasons , how windy it usually is, or how much rain or snow typically falls.

When scientists talk about climate, they're often looking at averages of precipitation, temperature, humidity, sunshine, wind, and other measures of weather that occur over a long period in a particular place. In some instances, they might look at these averages over 30 years. And, we refer to these three-decade averages of weather observations as  Climate Normals .

While descriptions of an area’s climate provide a sense of what to expect, they don't provide any specific details about what the weather will be on any given day

Looking at Climate Normals can help us describe whether the summers are hot and humid and whether the winters are cold and snowy at a particular place. They can also tell us when we might expect the  warmest day of the year  or the  coldest day of the year  at that location. But, while descriptions of an area’s climate provide a sense of what to expect, they don't provide any specific details about what the weather will be on any given day.

Here’s one way to visualize it. Weather tells you what to wear each day. Climate tells you what types of clothes to have in your closet.

How do weather observations become

climate data?

Across the globe, observers and automated stations measure weather conditions at thousands of locations every day of the year. Some observations are made hourly, others just once a day. Over time, these weather observations allow us to quantify long-term average conditions, which provide insight into an area’s climate.

In many locations around the  United States , systematic weather records have been kept for over 140 years. With these long-term records, we can detect patterns and trends. And, as the Nation’s official archive for environmental data, it’s our job to collect, quality control, and organize these data and make them available online for scientists, decision makers, and you.

Are regional climates different from the global climate?

Global climate is a description of the climate of a planet as a whole, with all the regional differences averaged

Like the United States, different regions of the world have varying climates. But, we can also describe the climate of an entire planet—referred to as the  global climate . Global climate is a description of the climate of a planet as a whole, with  all the regional differences averaged . Overall, global climate depends on the amount of energy received by the sun and the amount of energy that is trapped in the system. And, these amounts are different for different planets. Scientists who study Earth’s climate look at the factors that affect our planet as a whole.

How does the climate change?

While the weather can change in just a few minutes or hours, climate changes over longer time frames

While the weather can change in just a few minutes or hours, climate changes over longer time frames. Climate events, 

like El Niño , happen over several years, with larger fluctuations happening over decades. And, even larger climate changes happen over hundreds and thousands of years.

Today, climates are changing. Our Earth is warming more quickly than it has in the past  according to the research of scientists . Hot summer days may be quite typical of climates in many regions of the world, but warming is causing  Earth's average global temperature to increase . The amount of solar radiation, the chemistry of the atmosphere, clouds, and the biosphere all affect Earth's climate.

As global climate changes, weather patterns are changing as well. While it’s impossible to say whether a particular day’s weather was affected by climate change, it is possible to predict how patterns might change. For example,  scientists predict more extreme weather events  as Earth’s climate warms.

Why do we study climate?

Climate, climate change, and their impacts on weather events affect people all around the world

Climate, climate change, and their impacts on weather events affect people all around the world. Rising global temperatures are expected to further  raise sea levels  and  change precipitation  patterns and other local climate conditions. Changing regional climates could alter forests, crop yields, and water supplies. They could also affect  human health , animals, and many types of  ecosystems . Deserts may expand into existing rangelands, and features of some of our  National Parks  and  National Forests  may be permanently altered.

While weather refers to short-term changes in the atmosphere, climate refers to atmospheric changes over longer periods of time, usually defined as 30 years or more. This is why it is possible to have an especially cold spell even though, on average, global temperatures are rising. The former is a weather event that takes place over the course of days, while the latter indicates an overall change in climate, which occurs over decades. In other words, the cold winter is a relatively small atmospheric perturbation within a much larger, long-term trend of warming.

Despite their differences, weather and climate are interlinked. As with weather, climate takes into account precipitation, wind speed and direction, humidity, and temperature. In fact, climate can be thought of as an average of weather conditions over time. More importantly, a change in climate can lead to changes in weather patterns.

Our Climate Is Changing

The global climate has always been in a state of flux. However, it is changing much faster now than it has in the past, and this time human activities are to blame. One of the leading factors contributing to climate change is the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, gas, and oil, which we use for transport, energy production, and industry. Burning fossil fuels releases large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into the atmosphere; CO 2  is one of a group of chemicals known as greenhouse gases. They are so named because they allow heat from the sun to enter the atmosphere but stop it from escaping, much like the glass of a greenhouse.

The overall effect is that the global temperature rises, leading to a phenomenon known

as global warming.

Global warming is a type of climate change, and it is already having a measurable effect on the planet in the form of melting Arctic sea ice, retreating glaciers, rising sea levels, increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, and a change in animal

and plant ranges.

The planet has already heated by about 0.8°C (1.4°F) in the last century, and temperatures have continued to rise. Scientists cannot directly attribute any specific extreme weather event to climate change, but they are certain that climate change makes extreme weather more likely.

In 2018, at least 5,000 people were killed and 28.9 million more required aid as a result of

extreme weather events.

The Indian state of Kerala was devastated by flooding; California was ravaged by a series of wildfires; and the strongest storm of the year, supertyphoon Mangkhut, crashed into the Philippines. It is likely that more frequent and more severe weather events are on the horizon.

Climate change is not a new concept, and yet little seems to have been done about it on a global scale. The greenhouse effect was first discovered in the 1800s, but it was not until 1988 that the global community galvanized to form the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since then, leaders from around the world have committed to a series of goals to combat climate change, the latest of which is the Paris Agreement in which 185 countries have pledged to stop global temperatures from rising by more than 2°C (3.6°F) above preindustrial levels. In 2015, all United Nations member states agreed to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) designed to “provide a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” SDG 13 in particular commands member states to “take urgent action to combat climate change

and its impacts.”

Part of the reason the global community has been so slow to act on climate change could be the confusion surrounding distinctions between weather and climate. People are reluctant to believe that the  climate  is changing when they can look outside their window and see for themselves that the  weather  appears typical.