4.1 Climate
What is climate?- What factors determine global climate?
weather
climate
microclimate
greenhouse effect
Preview Visuals Before you read, look at Figure 4–2. What questions do you have about this diagram? Write a prediction that relates this figure to climate.
THINK ABOUT IT When you think about climate, you might think of dramatic headlines: “Hurricane Katrina floods New Orleans!” or “Drought parches the Southeast!” But big storms and seasonal droughts are better described as weather rather than climate. So, what is climate, and how does it differ from weather? How do climate and weather affect organisms and ecosystems?
Weather and Climate
What is climate?
Weather and climate both involve variations in temperature, precipitation, and other environmental factors. Weather is the day-to-day condition of Earth's atmosphere. Weather where you live may be clear and sunny one day but rainy and cold the next. Climate, on the other hand, refers to average conditions over long periods. A region's climate is defined by year-after-year patterns of temperature and precipitation.
It is important to note that climate is rarely uniform even within a region. Environmental conditions can vary over small distances, creating microclimates. For example, in the Northern Hemisphere, south-facing sides of trees and buildings receive more sunlight, and are often warmer and drier, than north-facing sides. We may not notice these differences, but they can be very important to many organisms.
BUILD Vocabulary
PREFIXES The prefix hemi- in hemisphere means “half.” The Northern Hemisphere encompasses the northern half of Earth.
Factors That Affect Climate
What factors determine global climate?
A person living in Orlando, Florida, may wear shorts and a T-shirt in December, while someone in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is still wearing a heavy coat in April. It rarely rains in Phoenix, Arizona, but it rains often in Mobile, Alabama. Clearly, these places all have different climates—but why? What causes differences in climate? Global climate is shaped by many factors, including solar energy trapped in the biosphere, latitude, and the transport of heat by winds and ocean currents.
In Your Notebook Describe the climate where you live. What factors influence it?
Table of Contents
- Formulas and Equations
- Applying Formulas and Equations
- Mean, Median, and Mode
- Estimation
- Using Measurements in Calculations
- Effects of Measurement Errors
- Accuracy
- Precision
- Comparing Accuracy and Precision
- Significant Figures
- Calculating With Significant Figures
- Scientific Notation
- Calculating With Scientific Notation
- Dimensional Analysis
- Applying Dimensional Analysis