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Click here to Order your Radar Equipment Online UNIT 6LESSON 1 CLIMATE AND CLIMATOLOGY OVERVIEW Define climate, climatology, and
related termin- ology.
OUTLINE Climate Climatology Ecology CLIMATE AND CLIMATOLOGY Before starting any discussion about climate and climatology, we must become familiar with these and other related terms. In this lesson, we define climate, various types of climatology, and climatology as it relates to other sciences such as ecology. Learning Objective: Define climate, climatology, and related terminology. CLIMATE Climate is the average or collective state of Earths atmosphere at any given location or area over a long period of time. While weather is the sum total of the atmospheres variables for a relatively short period of time, the climate of an area is determined over periods of many years and represents the general weather characteristics of an area or locality. The term climate applies to specific regions and is therefore highly geographical. CLIMATOLOGY Climatology is the scientific study of climate and is a major branch of meteorology. Climatology is the tool that is used to develop long-range forecasts. There are three principal ap-proaches to the study of climatology: physical, descriptive, and dynamic.Physical Climatology The physical climatology approach seeks to explain the differences in climate in light of the physical processes influencing climate and the pro-cesses producing the various kinds of physical climates, such as marine, desert, and mountain. Physical climatology deals with explanations of climate rather than with presentations.Descriptive Climatology Descriptive climatology typically orients itself in terms of geographic regions; it is often re-ferred to as regional climatology. A description of the various types of climates is made on the basis of analyzed statistics from a particular area. A further attempt is made to describe the interac-tion of weather and climatic elements upon the people and the areas under consideration. Descriptive climatology is presented by verbal and graphic description without going into causes and theory.Dynamic Climatology Dynamic climatology attempts to relate characteristics of the general circulation of the entire atmosphere to the climate. Dynamic climatology is used by the theoretical meteorologist and addresses dynamic and ther-modynamic effects. |
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