Firstly, the term Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a specific place and time. For example, it is 50 degrees outside my house right now with overcast skies. That is the weather. Meteorologists can forecast "Weather" from a Nowcast which is the weather forecast for the next 3-7 hours to long range forecast which is about a 14 day forecast.
After about 14 days the state of the atmosphere becomes hard to predict for a specific place and time so, you generalize, this generalization or averaging is called predicting the Climate. Climate, is an average of weather over a long period of time. For example, when the Dinosaurs roamed, the Earth's climate was very warm. My main point is Climate is an average of the weather that is occurring over a long period of time.
This brings me back to the term "Global Warming", which was first talked about in the 1970's. Global Warming means that in a climate has been increasing in temperature for the past 15-20 years. This means that every place in the world that people are recording temperature data is averaged together to make a plot which shows the global temperature rising over the past several years. That is what the term "Global Warming" means. I'm not going to fight anyone about the specifics on the how's, what's, and why's about Global Warming. I just want to make it clear that "Global Warming" is a CLIMATE term not at weather one.
It's one of my pet peeves when people say it's "Global Warming" when its a hot summer time day in July. Um, hello! It's suppose to be hot in July people, well if you live in the Northern Hemisphere at least. And just because it's hot where you are, which is weather by the way, doesn't mean that it's hot somewhere else.
I'm not saying that the world is or isn't warming I just want to make sure people are using the correct terminology when they speak about it. Short but sweet lesson on Weather and Climate! If you have any questions about the definitions on either of the subjects feel free to ask.
Photo From:
killerasteroids.org
