Climate
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- Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the "average weather," or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands of years. The classical period is 3 decades, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system. See weather.
EPA - Cite This Source - This Definition - The average weather, usually taken over a 30 year time period, for a particular region and time period. Climate is not the same as weather, but rather, it is the average pattern of weather for a particular region. Weather describes the short-term state of the atmosphere. Climatic elements include precipitation, temperature, humidity, sunshine, wind velocity, phenomena such as fog, frost, and hail-storms, and other measures of the weather. See weather.
EPA - Cite This Source - This Definition - the "average weather" (or, more specifically, the mean and variability of variables such as temperature, precipitation and winds) over a time period ranging from months to thousands of years to millions of years.
NCDC National Climatic Data Center - Cite This Source - This Definition - Climate Synthesis of weather conditions in a given area, characterized by long-term statistics (mean values, variances, probabilities of extreme values, etc.) of the meteorological elements in that area. Polar climate (arctic climate) is generally the climate of a geographical polar region, most commonly taken to be a climate which is too cold to support the growth of trees.
NSIDC - Cite This Source - This Definition - anomaly, Average value, Climate variability, field, Grid, inversion, Meteorological element, Meteorology, parameter, Upper atmosphere, Weather, World Meteorological Organization program