What is a Climate? Think about where you live. What can you expect from one day to the next, month after month? Is it usually sunny? Do you get a lot of rain? Are the winters cold and snowy? Do you have warm, sunny weather all year long? Are your summers short and winters long? All of these describe different climates. When we talk about what we can expect from the weather in a certain time of year or over the course of a whole year, we are talking about an area’s climate.
Weather vs. Climate People often confuse weather and climate because they both describe the same thing – what it’s like outdoors. However, weather is only what is happening in the moment. We might talk about today’s weather, or the weather this week. Climate is what we can expect, based on a lot of measurements over a long period of time. The climate for an area describes the normal or average conditions like high temperature, low temperature, or rainfall. It might be hotter than usual this week; that is the weather being abnormal for the climate.
Earth’s Major Climate Zones 23.5° AXIS
NORTH POLE (90° N) Polar Zone Temperate Zone
What you can expect from a climate depends mostly on the location’s latitude. Lines of latitude are parallel, imaginary lines drawn around the Earth. If you were to slice the Earth in northern and southern halves, you would have sliced it along the equator. Latitude lines run parallel to the equator.
Energy, Climate, and You Student Guide
The further you move away from the equator, the less intense the light from the sun, and the cooler average temperatures become. The areas in the far north and south are polar climate zones. Tropical areas usually have very warm, humid conditions most of the year. Between the tropics and polar regions we have temperate zones, where there are four distinct seasons and moderate rainfall. Dry regions have almost no precipitation and are found in many locations on Earth.
60°
Climate Factors
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People who live at or near the equator get the most intense, direct sunlight. Areas at or near the equator have the warmest temperatures all year long and don’t really have distinct seasons. They may have rainy periods or dry periods, but these regions, known as the tropics, do not have winter, spring, or autumn.
ARCTIC CIRCLE (66.5° N)
30°
TROPIC OF CANCER (23.5° N)
Tropical Zone
0°
Equator
TROPIC OF CAPRICORN (23.5° S)
30°
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Temperate Zone 60°
Polar Zone
ANTARCTIC CIRCLE (66.5° N)
SOUTH POLE (90° S)
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