by Viv Forbes
The weather at any spot is usually defined by max/min temperatures, humidity, precipitation and wind strength/direction. Weather varies hourly, daily, season-to-season and place-to-place. These weather measurements at any place can be averaged over various time periods.
Climate is defined as the average of thirty years of weather. Mark Twain explained the difference: “Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get”.
Weather statistics can be averaged over larger areas, such by region, state, continent or the globe. This is a mathematical abstraction, becoming less accurate and less meaningful as the time or area covered increases. A global average annual temperature which (after debatable adjustments) includes winter in the Antarctic and summer in the Sahara is irrelevant. No one lives in the global average temperature.
Weather and climate have been so politicised that most commentaries are now merely propaganda.
In the Brave New World of global warming alarmists, a long frigid winter is “just weather”, but one stinking hot summer day is “clear evidence of dangerous man-made climate change”.
And despite an un-predicted 17 years of stable global temperature trends, their prophets still chant their doleful dirge: “Unless we have a carbon tax, extreme weather disasters are coming your way soon”.
Previous related posts:
Heatwave Hype and Wind Wisdom
The Climate See-saw.
Twisting Tornados into Climate Crises
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Viv, your following statement is brilliant! (Why am I not surprised?? :-)
ReplyDelete"Weather and climate have been so politicised that most commentaries are now merely propaganda.
In the Brave New World of global warming alarmists, a long frigid winter is “just weather”, but one stinking hot summer day is “clear evidence of dangerous man-made climate change”.
Laymen can be excused for becoming confused over the way "weather" and "climate" are often interchanged outrageously by so-called experts out to get maximum media exposure (including that of the 'social' variety) for their particular cause. But those 'experts' citing 'consensus', 'peer review' and other buzz words can't be let off the hook. And the way that vastly expanding urban heat islands, water / forestation / population explosion inter-related issues obviously affecting local weather patterns are generally ignored, drives me nuts.
Cheers al