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Your letters: Weather vs climate
The weather in any spot is usually defined by temperature, humidity, precipitation and wind strength/direction
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he weather in any spot is usually defined by temperature, humidity, precipitation and wind strength/direction. Weather varies hourly, daily, season-to-season and place-to-place.
These weather measurements 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. 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 politicized 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 unanticipated 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'.
Viv Forbes
Queensland, Australia
