Weather and Climate Flashcards
What is a teleconnection?
Dynamics of atmosphere mean circulation conditions in one region may be linked to those in another.
e.g Russian fires and Asian floods linked meteorologically
What determines the weather experienced in a place?
Atmospheric circulation and latitude determine major weather patterns.
What is atmospheric circulation driven by?
Energy exchanges, primarily the equator pole heat differential.
Changing the energy balance introducing more heating capacity into the lower atmosphere in the surface, energy comes in at the equator into these circulation systems and ends up being transported to polar regions which loses energy, distributing energy around the planet.
Example of a teleconnection
Existence of high pressure over Russia led to a deflection of jet streams that acted as a trigger for an abnormal start to the Asian monsoon (came before it should)- lots of heavy rain in a short period of time.
This is not climate change on it’s own, it is an example of the variability that is inherent in the atmospheric circulation (it’s unusual and a distinct anomaly in terms of climate)
One storm is not climate change, what is?
Significantly more frequent storms, bigger storms over a 30 year period is climate change.
What happens if If changes occur in atmospheric energy over a period of time (usually at least decades)?
The general circulation patterns are likely to shift, changing, on average, the weather experienced in a particular place (more storms, more droughts, changed monthly averages, etc)
This is climate change.
Climate is a composed set of what variables?
Temperature Pressure Precipitation Wind Humidity
What are the key properties of climates composition of set variables?
Spatial patterns, temporal trends, mean (and variance) and variability.
What is variation?
describes the spread in a set of values that are observed. This can be described, for example, as the total range from highest to lowest value.
What is variance?
It measures how far a set of numbers is spread out around the mean. A small variance means the measurements are tightly clustered about the mean, a large variance that there is much variation around the mean.
In climate terms, a set of measurements that have a low variance would mean that a variable was rather consistent and changed little (think tropical vs temperate zone temperatures).
What is variability?
Describes how much variation occurs- say in temperature- across space or through time. A highly variable climate record suggests large swings in values (much variation), and thus perhaps a degree of unpredictability (from day to day or year to year). Variability is an important property of climate.
What are anomaly maps?
Compare two states via differences, here temperature simulated for future decades minus present values.
What is an anomaly?
Departure from specified mean
What do intra-annual climate data show?
seasonal patterns, short term variability- a seasonal or monthly value can be compared with a longer term mean.
What do inter-annual climate data show?
Variation from year to year.
