ENVS 3010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: World Meteorological Organization
26 May 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Weather: weather is a variation in short-term condition of the atmosphere (minutes to months, it is expressed as temperature, precipitation, humidity, cloudiness, visibility and wind. Climate: climate is a statistical description of weather averaged over a period of time. The period being long enough to be able to identify statistical characteristics: world meteorological organization. Weather is what you get, climate is what you expect. Weather is more variable than climate on a short term scale. Climate is the general trend so has less variability: it is easier to predict than weather. A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (ex. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Anomaly: something that deviates from what is standard, normal or expected, standardized way to express a change in a standardized way, makes comparison easier, ex. temperature anomaly.
