Climate

Climate

Worldwide climate classifications map

Main article: Climate

Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time.^{[citation needed]} Climate can be contrasted to weather, which is the present condition of these same elements over periods up to two weeks.^{[citation needed]}
Climates can be classified according to the average and typical ranges of different variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most commonly used classification scheme is the one originally developed by Wladimir Köppen. The Thornthwaite system,^[19] in use since 1948, incorporates evapotranspiration in addition to temperature and precipitation information and is used in studying animal species diversity and potential impacts of climate changes.^{[citation needed]}

Weather

Rainbows are optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere.

Main article: Weather

Weather is a set of all the phenomena occurring in a given atmospheric area at a given time.^[20] Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate is the term for the average atmospheric conditions over longer periods of time.^[23] When used without qualification, "weather" is understood to be the weather of Earth..