Climate and weather

The concept of climate
While weather can change in a few hours, climate takes hundreds, thousands or even millions of years to change. It is defined as the average weather over time and space. Climate is the description of the long term pattern of weather in a particular area. Some scientists define climate as the average weather for a particular time period and region, usually taken over 30 years. Scientists look at averages of precipitation, temperature, humidity, sunshine, wind velocity, phenomena such as frost, hail, fog, hail storms when they talk about climate and other measures of the weather that occur over a long period in a specific place. For example, after checking a rain guage data, satellite data, lake and reservoir levels, scientists can say if during a summer, an area is drier than the average. It would likely indicate a change in the climate if it continues to be drier than normal over the course of many summers.

The concept of weather

Weather shows and tells us about the temperature, cloudiness, humidity, precipitation, brightness, visibility, wind, and atmospheric pressure. In some cases, weather can change from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day and season to season. It is the combine of events that happens each day in our atmosphere. Weather is never the same anywhere. It may be freezing and snowy or rainy in a part of the world, but hot and sunny in another. Weather reflects the short term conditions of the atmosphere while climate is the average weather (daily) for an extended period of time at a certain area.

Change in climate

The climate of the earth is changing relatively quick (to its usual pace) now due to the enhance greenhouse effects caused by humans emissions of greenhouse gasses, most locations are also experiencing a net warming as a result. This doesn't mean that cold temperatures will no longer be recorded or it can't get cold anymore. It simply means that, heat waves will be warmer and cold snaps will not be as cold. The scale of time of climate is not nearly as intuitive as that of weather, so even people who understand this, possibly have a tendency of being influenced by the most recent weather they experience. This effect can be observed the news during heat waves and cold snaps, which might be given as an evidence for or against earth warming. The variability of weather will always be of a greater magnitude than changes that are observed in climate.