* Climate is the study of Earths climate and the factors that cause past, present, and future climatic changes.
* Climate describes the long-term weather patterns of an area.
* Climate describes annual variations of temperature, precipitation, wind, and other weather variables.
* The data used to describe an area's climate.
* The data Include daily high and low temperatures, amounts of rainfall, wind speed and direction, humidity, and air pressure.
* The data are average on a monthly or annual basis for a period of at least 30 years to determine the normal.
Limitations of normals
* While normal offer valuable information, they must be used with caution.
* Normal are not intended to describe usual weather conditions ; they are the average values over a long period of time.
* When climatic normal are based on airport data, they might differ from actual weather conditions in nearby cities. Changes in elevation and others factors can cause climates to vary.
Causes of Climate
* Different parts of earth receive different amounts of solar radiation.
- Tropics: receive the most solar radiation.
- Temperature zones: temperatures are moderate.
- Polar zones: Solar radiation strikes the polar zones at a low angle.
* Water heats up and down more slowly than land.
*Temperatures in the lower atmosphere generally decrease with altitude.
* Two of the main causes of weather are the movement and interaction of air masses.
* Air masses also effect climate.
-air masses have distinct regions of origin, caused primarily by differences in the amount of solar radiation.
- The properties of air masses also depend on weather they formed over land or water.