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Monday, January 10, 2011
Daily Weather Variations Over Time Add Up to 'Climate'
By Sarah Keller
M.S. candidate, UNM Earth and Planetary Sciences
Chances are that you have been talking about the weather lately.
Whether it is New Mexico, New York City, Europe or Australia, there is plenty to say right now. Most of it probably relates to being cold, dealing with precipitation extremes or having travel plans turned upside down. Yet only a few weeks ago, many of us in New Mexico were talking about the warmth, the dryness and wondering if the ski areas were ever going to open.
As much as we love weather talk, sometimes it morphs into climate talk.
The first Snowmageddon 2010 and Al Gore's igloo on the National Mall may be the most public example. Then the igloo melted, Washington, D.C., had a heat wave and others found "evidence" for their side.
It does not matter what you think about climate change, the word climate alone should not make for impolite conversation nor should it be confused with weather.
Climate is not weather, it is the long-term average of weather.
Charles Wohlforth, author of "The Whale and the Supercomputer" put it plainly by writing, "Choosing shorts or long underwear on a particular day is about weather; the ratio of shorts to long underwear in the drawer is about climate."
It is a difference of time scales.
The fact that weather and climate are different means that we cannot hold up a single heat wave or a cold snap as "proof" for or against climate change. Doing so is akin to declaring yourself a prince(ss) or pauper based on your checking account balance at the beginning or the end of the month.
A single weather event is like your bank account on one day. Climate is like looking at your average annual bank account balance over your lifetime and watching that average go up, go down or bounce back and forth year after year.
Weather is one data point that determines our climate over time.
This is illustrated by the adage, "Climate is what you expect, and weather is what you get."
On Dec. 30 in Albuquerque, what we got was an average temperature that was four degrees below what we expected based on the statistics of weather — the climate.
Only 10 days prior, Albuquerque had an average temperature that was 16 degrees higher than what we expected and broke the record for warmest minimum temperature for that day.
What did those individual days tell us about the climate of New Mexico? Zilch.
Those relatively cold and warm temperatures last month were simply the results of weather events. However, they will become small parts of the numbers that make up New Mexico's climate.
When we get more warm weather events over time, that changes what we expect.
Weather talk is so much a part of the bread and butter of our daily interactions that Oscar Wilde said, "Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative."
Let's keep it that way by remembering the basic facts when weather talk turns into climate talk.
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