Scientific Facts About Weather & Climate
As climate change becomes more of a reality worldwide, it is beneficial to understand the differences between weather and climate and what each affects. People's everyday lives are affected by the climate they live in and the weather outside, no matter where they live on Earth.
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Climate Versus Weather
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Some may use "climate" and "weather" interchangeably, but they describe two different phenomena. While weather represents the temperature, precipitation, wind and cloud cover in one location on a particular day, climate is the overall weather of a location over a period of time, like months, seasons or years.
Weather Changes
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Changes in weather over time can be linked to various causes, including the movement of air masses, differing amounts of moisture in the atmosphere and varying atmospheric pressures. As the Earth spins, an uneven heating effect on the globe occurs due to the different angles the sun hits specific locations. Some areas of Earth experience hotter weather patterns than others, depending on the season.
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Clouds
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Forming when moist air cools, clouds are one of the biggest factors of weather in the atmosphere. The moist air, containing water vapor, cools and rises from the ground to form tiny water droplets that we see as clouds. When the air fails to rise very high, we perceive the clouds as fog. The more water vapor in the air, the larger the clouds; once the vapor reaches a critical condensation point, the clouds can produce rain.
Wind
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Another critical weather factor is wind, or the air that moves across the Earth's surface. Air masses in the lower levels of the Earth's atmosphere cause wind by their own movements. These movements, in turn, are caused by the sun's light passing through the atmosphere to heat up water and land masses, which then radiate the heat back into the air. Air masses are then created when the warmer air rises and the cooler air dips down into its place. The Earth's orbit also causes air masses to circulate.
Climate Change
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A combination of fossil fuel combustion and natural, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide over the past century or so have led to the greenhouse effect, where the atmosphere traps more of the heat from the sun closer to Earth's surface. This has recently begun to affect the climate across the globe. Temperatures as a whole have risen worldwide, resulting in the melting of the polar ice caps and glaciers around the world, some of which millions of people have relied on for water. Storms have also been given a boost in their intensity and frequency, as have droughts and floods.
Agriculture and Climate Change
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As the climate across the globe is affected by carbon emissions and other pollutants, agriculture becomes one of the primary industries that must learn to adapt. Without growing conditions that are favorable to certain crops, the crops will be unable to grow, leading to hunger and starvation for some and negative economic impacts for others.
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