What is the difference between climate and weather?
Answer Because climate can be thought of as average weather, the two are closely related. However, climate and weather are different. The main distinction between the two is the timeframe. Weather describes short-term atmospheric conditions in a specific place, such as a sunny day in Los Angeles or a snowstorm in Boston. Climate, on the other hand, refers to average atmospheric conditions over an extended period of time, such as decades or centuries. Using the cities of Los Angeles and Boston as examples again, these two locations have very different climates, even though their weather can possibly be similar on any one day. Source: IPCC “AR4 WG1 FAQs” 2007 (PDF) (128 pp, 10.
Climate is what you expect. Climate is usually defined as averages (and other statistics) of weather variables over some period of time, usually 30 years. Weather observations eventually turn into climate records. “Climate forecasts” are usually expressed as shifts in the statistics of weather over the next 1-12 months. Weather is what you get! Weather is described in terms of temperature, precipitation, cloudiness, wind speed, and so on. A description of these variables at any given moment constitutes weather; weather forecasts are much more specific than climate forecasts. – Return to top Is global warming happening or is this just a natural cycle? The world is unquestionably warming – the more difficult question to answer is whether human activity (chiefly the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas) is responsible. Dozens of scientific studies have demonstrated that the increase in globally averaged temperature since about 1950 cannot be explained as a natural cycle
