GLOBE Scientists' Blog

On any given day, if you use your favorite web browser to search for climate news, there would be countless articles that appear.  These talk about changes in temperature and what countries are doing to mitigate climate change. Similarly, if you search for weather news, another countless number of articles result, such as flooding, tornadoes or a heat wave.  They’re both talking about conditions of the atmosphere at a given location.  But what really is the difference?

Weather is the condition of the atmosphere over a short period of time.  A short period of time can be as short as 5 minutes in relation to a thunderstorm, to a week or even longer when experiencing a tropical cyclone.  Weather is always changing, and it’s what you look to when you’re planning outside activities and what to wear.

Current Weather conditions in India on 28 June 2012, from intellicast.com

The GLOBE Program focuses on the collection of weather data through its atmosphere protocols.  These include, but are not limited to, air temperature, precipitation, relative humidity and clouds.  Data from these protocols that are entered into the GLOBE database are very important to  building a long term record.  As the record length increases, GLOBE schools will be able to study climate using GLOBE data.

Climate is the condition of the atmosphere over a long period of time.  A long period of time is generally defined as 30 years or longer by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).  In order to determine a location’s climate, statistics are performed with the major atmospheric variables listed above.  These statistics take into account the latitude, terrain, altitude and proximity to water of a location.

As the GLOBE Program matures, GLOBE schools and scientists will be able to use data entered into the GLOBE database to examine changes in climate over time.  For example, if your school keeps a continuous air temperature record for 30 years at the same atmosphere site, you would be able to calculate the normal temperature for your specific school. A normal temperature is the temperature of a location calculated by taking the daily temperature and averaging it over 30 years.

An easy way to think about the difference between weather and climate is to think about your clothes closet.  Each day, you get up and choose an outfit, such as a school or work uniform.  That’s weather.  However, when you look at your wardrobe as a whole, you’re looking at climate.  As another example, take a look at this video from grist.com explaining variations (weather) and trends (climate) using a dog and his owner on a walk:

Understanding the difference between weather and climate is a key outcome of the GLOBE Student Climate Research Campaign (SCRC).  It aims to engage students in measuring, investigating, and understanding the climate system in their local community as well as around the world.  Using GLOBE protocols and data, as well as other long-term datasets, students take climate-related measurements and investigate research questions about climate.  Are you a school participating in the SCRC?  We’d love to hear from you!  Leave us a comment or email us at science@globe.gov.

-Jessica Mackaro

This week’s blogger is Neil Cliffe, from Agri-Science Queensland.  Neil is the manager of the Climate Risk and Adaptation Project in Queensland, Australia.  This blog post is part of a series on the extreme climate shifts that have been occurring in Australia; in which the region went from terrible drought (Part I-The need for rain) to devastating floods (Part II-When it rains, it pours).

Discussing climate change with people can sometimes be challenging. We all live in a world that is intimately influenced by the climate around us.  At a most basic level we experience variations season by season in variables such as temperature and precipitation.  This seasonal variation is more obvious in temperate regions of the world, but evident wherever we live, even in the tropics and sub-tropics.  Some of us have lived through extreme weather events that can have a profound impact on our lives, many of which are negative, but some of which have positive impacts too.  For example, we can think of the negative impact of extreme floods, but the positive impact that floods may bring to water supplies in dams and for agriculture production more generally.

Reconciling the climate we live in, which changes constantly, with the concept of climate change as a result of rising CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere can be a difficult concept to understand.  Views can be polarized by the different interpretations of data to fit one perspective or another, in addition to the role of the media in sensationalizing the issue for their own ends.  However, the majority of climate scientists agree that climate change is occurring and that atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, global temperature, and sea level are rising at rates that are unprecedented in the geological record.

How do we work with people who have different views and different knowledge bases to discuss this globally important issue?  In climate change adaptation workshops in Queensland, Australia, our goals are to raise awareness of climate variability and climate change projections at a regional level.  Then, we provide a structured discussion process, which challenges people to think about both the negative and positive impacts that a particular climate variable may have on an industry, community, or situation.  Finally, we consider what potential adaptation responses might be appropriate to respond to those impacts.

At the start of these workshops, we develop a 60-year timeline to collect group member’s experiences of climate and weather events that they have experienced in their lifetimes in the regions where they live.  Common examples that people provide include floods, droughts, heatwaves, fires, storms or cyclone/hurricanes.  We then challenge them to consider if they have noticed any trends in these events over their lifetimes.  This is a more challenging question and some people will say that there is no trend, it’s just natural climate variability.  However, others suggest that winters are getting warmer, the intensity of storms is greater, or that the pattern of afternoon storms in spring has changed in their lifetimes.  Others have noticed changes in biological systems.  For example, fishermen have noticed changes in the distribution and timing of catch for some fish species off the Queensland coast, with some species even disappearing in particular regions.

This ‘timeline’ exercise acknowledges local experience without judging perspectives that might be skeptical about the existence of climate change over and above natural climate variability.  In every workshop where we have used this technique, someone has identified a trend, or drawn a conclusion, that the outcome may be related to climate change.  In a sense, this then gives local permission to further discuss and consider regional climate records and what the science is saying in terms of regional climate change projections.  Thus, after this initial exercise we then share what the science says about climate in the region and go on to discuss in small groups the impacts and possible adaptation responses using a risk management approach.

From these workshops, I’ve come to believe that building understanding through recognizing local knowledge and experience, matched with the deeper insights that science provides, can lead to collaborative approaches that support people, industries, and communities to better respond to both natural climate variability and climate change impacts.

Suggested activity: How could you use the timeline exercise, as described in this post, in your classroom or community to encourage discussion on climate change?  Gathering experiential knowledge from people in your community using the timeline exercise to then compare with scientific data analysis would make an interesting research project to share with the GLOBE community!  We’d love to hear your thoughts—send us an email or post a comment!