Weather vs
Climate
There is an important distinction between weather and
climate.
Weather pertains to occurrences from hour to hour,
or day to day, in a specific location.
Climate pertains to average weather over an extended
period of time, in a specific region or on a larger scale. Climate can
correspond to averages over a season, year, or century and over a county,
state, country, or the globe.
Some examples of differences include:
-
the weather at a given location (as defined by temperature
or rainfall) can vary substantially through the course of a day but this
doesn't necessarily imply a climate change,
-
a wet season can have several dry days within it,
-
very wet and very dry months can occur on a regular basis
through the seasonal cycle but are not viewed as climate shifts as they
occur regularly every year.
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