Sunday 12 December 2010

Climate Isn't Weather

'Still believe in this Climate Change nonsense?' asked my colleague as i stood shaking the snow off my boots last week. That's the problem with climate change deniers, they seem incapable, or unwilling, to understand the difference between climate and weather. It really isn't that difficult a concept to grasp but at the first fall of a snowflake, i see some grinning goon trying to urge everyone to throw some more coal on the fire so here, for the hard of thinking, is why the 18 inches of snow we experienced last week does not mean the climate change argument is defunct.

Weather describes the condition when you look out of your window. It might be sunny, hot, windy, cloudy, raining or even snowing.

Climate is the average weather conditions expected for a certain place. Climate is based on the average weather experienced over decades and refers to what is expected to happen rather than the actual conditions.

See, if isn't hard to understand so if you are one of those excitable people who scream 'It's climate change' when the thermometer hits 30C or scream 'climate change my aunt fanny' when a snowflake lands on your big empty head, remember that's the weather you are bawling about.
It's called Climate Change and there is a huge clue to what it refers to in the name.

2 comments:

Cheezy said...

Well said!

Lucy said...

The Daily Mail types need telling sometimes but i do get the impression that they know this already.