CLIMATE

3RD Quarter - Lesson 2

• Earth’s climate is always changing.
• However, with the drastic alteration that is being observed and
experienced at present, climate change phenomenon is
considered the most serious threat facing human race today.
• It is also considered the root of other environmental problems
such as biodiversity depletion, increasing ocean acidification,
rising sea levels, and extreme weather patterns.
METEOROLOGY VS. CLIMATOLOGY
• Weather and climate are two terms that describe the condition of
the atmosphere.
• Weather generally refers to the day-to-day temperature and
precipitation activity in the atmosphere.
• It describes the interactions of air, water, and solar energy in a
specific period of time.
• The sun provides the energy that controls the Earth’s climate
system.
• Here on Earth, common weather phenomena include blizzards,
cloud, fog, rain, hail, snow, cold and warm fronts, and dust
storms.
• Meanwhile natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes,
typhoons, and ice storms are considered less common events.
• There are also meteorological events which are considered
bizarre brought about by anomalies in the Earth’s atmosphere.
• Some of which are mammatus clouds, St. Elmo’s Fire, Katabatic
winds, ball lightning, and Aurora borealis.
 ST. ELMO’S FIRE

MAMMATUS CLOUDS
 ST. ELMO’S FIRE

BALL LIGHTNING
• Most weather phenomena occur at the lowest layer of the
atmosphere known as troposphere and they can affect weather
lower down the troposphere.
• The interdisciplinary study of the changes in temperature,
moisture, air pressure, and wind direction in the troposphere is
called meteorology.
• There are four meteorological scales, namely, microscale,
mesoscale, synoptic scale, and global scale.
 FOUR METEOROLOGICAL SCALE
1. Microscale meteorology
• It focuses on events that range in size from few centimeters to a
few kilometers and with a life span of less than a day.
• Experts on this scale study the process that takes place between
soil, vegetation, and surface water near ground level.
• Good example for this scale is the tracking of air pollutants in
New Mexico, USA.
 FOUR METEOROLOGICAL SCALE
2. Mesoscale meteorology
• Studies phenomena such as thunderstorms, gap winds, downslope
windstorms, squall line, and land-sea breezes that range in size
from a few kilometers to roughly 1,000 kilometers.
 FOUR METEOROLOGICAL SCALE
3. Synoptic scale meteorology
• Is concerned with phenomena such as extratropical cyclones and their
accompanying fronts and jet streams that cover an area of several hundred
or even thousands of kilometers.
• Low-pressure and high-pressure systems reported on local weather forecasts
are also classified under this scale.
• Low-pressure systems occur where the atmospheric pressure at the Earth is
less than its surrounding environment.
• On the contrary, high-pressure system occur where the atmospheric pressure
at the surface of Earth is greater than its surrounding environment.
 FOUR METEOROLOGICAL SCALE
4. Global-scale meteorology
• Studies weather patterns related to the transport of heat, moisture,
and wind from the tropics to the poles.
• One of the most researched events under this scale is El Nino
Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon which is characterized
by an abnormal weather pattern caused by the warming of the
Pacific Ocean.
 CLIMATE
• Climate on the other hand, is the average of all weather conditions
of an area over a long period of time.
• These conditions include average temperatures, air pressure,
humidity, and days of sunshine for a period of 30 days.
• Long-term weather patterns differ according to regional locations.
• The simplest analysis of climate uses data about temperature and
rainfall or precipitation.
 CLIMATE

• Precipitation is the generic term for all forms of

condensation falling back to earth like rain, snow, hail, or
mist.
• With temperature and precipitation, climatologists have
classified the different climates around the globe.
 CLIMATOGRAMS
• A climatograms or climatographs is a visual representation
that shows annual highs, lows, averages, and ranges of
temperature as well as precipitation for a specific city,
province or region.
• Temperature is graphed against precipitation.
• A climatogram gives general climate of a region.
• Temperature appears as a graph line and rainfall as a bar
graph.
• Various regions and cities have their own climatograms.
 TEMPERATURE

• Atmospheric temperature or simply temperature is

the measure of hotness or coldness at different levels
of the Earth’s atmosphere.
• Factors affect temperature include incoming solar
radiation, humidity, and altitude.
 HUMIDITY
• Temperature affects the moisture in the atmosphere called humidity.
• Present in the atmosphere are water molecules that are held in spaces
between other gases.
• As air is heated, gas molecules move away from each other; thus, there is
more space available for water vapor.
• On the other hand, a drop in temperature results in gas molecules moving
closer together which results in squeezing out of water temperature to the
atmosphere.
 HUMIDITY
• Relative humidity is the amount of water
vapor in the air at any given time that is
usually less than that is required to
saturate the air.
• When air cannot hold anymore all the
moisture, condensation occurs, and dews
are formed.
 WIND

• Wind is the movement of air relative to the surface of the Earth.

• It is formed as a result of spatial differences in atmospheric
pressure.
• These differences are caused by uneven absorption of solar
radiation.
• It is described by two characteristics: wind speed and wind
direction.
 WIND

• Wind speed refers to the velocity attained by a mass of air

traveling horizontally through the atmosphere.
• It is measured using an anemometer in kilometer per hour, miles
per hour, knots of meter per second.
• Wind speed is at its greatest during daytime when the greatest
spatial extremes in atmospheric temperature and pressure exist.
 BRANCHES OF CLIMATOLOGY

• Meteorology is sometimes used interchangeably with climatology

as both described the condition of the Earth's atmosphere.
• However, climatology focuses on how the changes in climate
occur and how those changes may affect future conditions.
• As a scientific discipline, climatology has the following branches:
 BRANCHES OF CLIMATOLOGY

1. Paleoclimatology
• Study of ancient climate.
• Since it is quite impossible to go back in time and observe what
climates were like million of years ago, scientists use imprints
during past climate called proxies.
• They use microbial life such as diatoms, forams, ice cores, tree
rings, and sediment cores to interpret paleoclimate.
 BRANCHES OF CLIMATOLOGY

2. Paleotempestology
• Study of past tropical cyclone activities by means of geological
evidence and historical documentary records.
• Example proxies used are overwash deposit preserved in the
sediments of coastal lakes and marshes, microfossils
(foraminifera, diatoms, phytolits, ects.), tempestites in marine
areas, speleotherms, and tree rings.
 BRANCHES OF CLIMATOLOGY

3. Historical climatology
• Study of historical changes in climate and their effect on human history and
development.
• Unlike paleoclimatology, this branch focuses on the climate as related to
human history and investigates climates that existed only on the last few
thousand years.
• Written records such as sagas, maps, chronicles, and pictorial illustrations
like paintings, drawings, and rock arts are the primary sources of
information for this discourse.
EARTH’S TEMPERATURE ZONE
• Each city, each region has its own climate graph or
climatogram.
• The average monthly temperatures around globe vary
according to the latitude, location, season, and the number
of hours daylight.
• Temperature is as cold as -80 degrees Celsius during
Antarctic winter or as hot as +60 degrees Celsius in some
dessert zones.
• The distribution of average annual temperatures on the
surface of the earth is primarily determined by an angle at
which sunlight reaches the surface.
• The differences in the angles of incidence are due to the
earth’s round shape.
• Because the earth is round, only the front-most surfaces
receives direct sunlight.
• Earth rotates around an axis that is tilted
at 23.5 as it revolves around the sun.
• Because of the tilt, the location of the
direct sunlight that strikes the round
surface does not remain the same.
• The location of the vertical sun rays
varies throughout the year, at different
months of the earth’s revolution.
• The most direct rays can fall anywhere in the regions between 23.5
N latitude and 23.5 S latitude, depending on the time of the year.
• The overhead sun occurs only in the regions between these two
latitude which are the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
• Incident rays become more and more slanted on the
surface with higher latitudes.
• Insolation is the amount of heat absorbed by the earth’s
surface in a given amount of time.
• Insolation is higher as the incident sun rays tend to be
more perpendicular.
• The more slanted the incident rays, the lower the
insulation.
• Heat that is absorbed by the surface is reflected.
• It is this reflected heat that warms up the air above and
closest to the surface.
• Therefore, the air nearest the surface is warmed up
while the air in the higher parts remains cool.
• The air temperature depends on insolation and
insolation depends on the angle of incidence of sunlight.
• Differences in the angles of solar ray
incidence divide the earth into zones:
the tropical zone, the temperate
zone, and the polar zone.
• The tropical zones gets the most
sunlight while the polar zones get the
least sunlight.
• The warmest regions are the tropic
and the polar regions are the coldest.
EARTH’S GLOBAL RAINFALL
DISTRIBUTION
• The amount of solar energy received at any location of
the earth affects the rates of evaporation and
precipitation in the endless process of the hydrologic
cycle of water.
• Air temperature is an important factor of rainfall
because warm air goes into an upward motion.
• Constant solar radiation fosters evaporation.
• Where air is temperature is high, warm, humid air rises
and reaches the upper layers of the troposphere where it
expands due to lower pressure.
• Expansion cools the air to condensation point.
• Clouds are thus formed for eventual precipitation.
• In places of low temperature, cold air has little moisture
and has little capacity to produce rain.
 TROPICAL REGIONS
• The tropical regions between 23.5 N
and 23.5 S, also known as low latitudes,
have higher rainfall amounts due to the
greater amounts of radiation and
insolation they received.
• In these regions, the noontime sun is
high in the sky all the year through.
 TEMPERATE ZONES
• In the temperate zones or the mid
latitudes, from 23.5 N to 66.5 and from
23.5 S to 66.5 S, the formation of
precipitation involves ice.
• At about 2km above in the troposphere,
ice crystals grow big enough to fall the
surface.
• If the temperature near the ground is
warm enough, falling snow can melt and
fall as rain.
 TEMPERATE ZONES
• If the falling ice crystals meet a warm
layer and then a very cold layer near the
ground, precipitation falls as sleet or
freezing rain.
• When the ice crystals are repeatedly
carried up and down by updrafts and
downdrafts, water attaches and freezes
around the crystals that grow into
hailstones.
 POLAR REGIONS
• Polar areas that extend from North Pole
to the Arctic Circle (66.5 N latitude)
and from the South Pole to the Antarctic
Circle are called high latitudes where
the angle of the sun is much lower.
• The radiation of the sun is less intense
because it is spread out over a much
larger area.
 POLAR REGIONS
• The surface of the high latitudes slopes away
from the sun.
• The little radiation that reaches the surface is
reflected by snow.
• White surfaces do not absorb radiation.
• Radiation reflects from white surfaces.
• This is known as albedo effect.
• Air in these regions contains very little water
vapor because there is a very slow rate of
evaporation from the surface.
FACTORS THAT AFFECT CLIMATE
 LATITUDE
• Latitude is the geographic coordinate that specifies the north-south
position of a point on the surface of Earth.
• It is an angle which ranges from 0 (North or South) at the poles.
• Latitude is considered the single most important factor that determines
climate.
• It dictates the intensity and duration of sun exposure to Earth.
• Generally, the farther away from the equator the region can be found, the
lesser the energy that reaches the ground at any point.
 LATITUDE
• As a proof, places at low latitude (close to the equator receive greater
sunlight than places located at high altitudes (far from the equator).
• During revolution, Earth wobbles slightly on its axis as it orbits the sun
(focus).
• As earth follows an elliptical orbit, the distance between Earth and the
focus is not uniformly all throughout the course.
• The planet sometimes moves closer towards and farther away from the
sun.
 LATITUDE
• The average distance between the Earth and the sun is 150 million
kilometer.
• As its nearest point on the ellipse that is Earth’s orbit around the sun, the
Earth is 91, 445, 000 miles (147, 166, 462 km) from the sun.
• The point in Earth’s orbit is known as perihelion and it occurs on January
3.
• Earth is farthest away from the sun on July 4 when it is 94, 555, 000
(152, 171, 522 km) from the sun.
• This point in Earth’s orbit is called aphelion.
 LATITUDE
• As Earth’s axis is tilted 23.5 to the
perpendicular, the amount of heat for each
latitude varies with the seasons.
• From April to September, the Northern
Hemisphere is tilted toward the sun and
receives more energy while the Southern
hemisphere receives addition energy
between October and March when it is
tilted toward the sun.
 LATITUDE-ARCTIC
• Regions found at 66.5 N to the North Pole comprise the Arctic
Region; from 66.5 S to the South Pole is the Antarctic.
• Places within the arctic climate zones are covered with permafrost.
• Antarctica, all of Greenland, the north of Alaska, Canada, and
Russia are some of the places under this zone.
• Winters are severe, the sea freezes, and the place is exceptionally
dry as there is a little precipitation in the form of snow.
 LATITUDE-ARCTIC
• During summer, this zone experiences continuous periods of
daylight but the monthly temperature struggles to rise above
freezing point.
• In these regions, the sun hovers above the horizon at midnight
in the summer and never rises at all, at times, during the winter.
 LATITUDE-TROPIC (HOT)
CLIMATES
• Tropic or tropical climate refers to the zones within latitudes
between 5/10 to 35
• The equatorial belt experiences a non-arid climate with an average
temperature above 18C.
• Weather condition is humid.
• Due to high temperature, active vertical uplift and precipitation
accompanied with thunderstorms are normal events in tropical
climates.
• Sunshine and rainfall are present that allows the zones to have
luxuriant vegetation.
 LATITUDE-TROPIC (HOT)
CLIMATES
• The nights of tropic weather condition are usually covered with
clouds and thereby with a fall in temperature to about 22.
• High precipitation is usually subjected when sun reaches overhead
during the midday time.
• Rainforest, savanna, and semi-arid are some of the examples of
tropical climate.
• There are three distinctive tropical climates: equatorial, tropical
continental, and hot deserts.
 LATITUDE-TEMPERATE
• Temperate climate refers to zones in a range of latitude
between 40and 60/70
• The north temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Cancer to
the Arctic Circle.
• The south temperate zone, on the other hand, extends from the
Tropic of Capricorn to the Antarctic Circle.
 LATITUDE-TEMPERATE
• Unlike arctic and tropic climates, this zone does not experience
extremes of temperature and precipitation.
• There are two types of temperate climate, namely, maritime and
continental.
• Maritime climate is strongly affected by the oceans and has fairly
steady temperatures across the seasons.
• Continental climate increases inland characterized by warmer
summers and colder winter due to the thermal inertia possessed by
the land.