Use the following interactive map from National Geographic and ERSI to explore climate zones across the world, and additional information discussed throughout the course, including ocean currents, precipitation, and temperature patterns, and tornadoes.
Planet Earth. Our home.
Among all the worlds in the universe, it's the only one we know that harbors life. A spinning globe of blue, green, gold, and white. A thing of beauty. But for many of us, a thing of questions. Many of these concern that thing which impacts us every day of our lives the weather. In this global age, so many of us have traveled beyond our own borders to lands that were hotter, colder, drier, or wetter than our own.
Or perhaps we've even gone halfway around the world and yet experienced weather very similar to the country of our origin. And perhaps some of us have asked the question, "Why is this so?" Well, all these questions have been answered, and they all come under one subject...That of climate.
Climate is defined as "the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period of time."
While in one region it might rain one day and be sunny the next or cool one week and hot the next. It's the long-term pattern of rainfall and temperature day after day, which will determine how that region will look Whether it will become a desert or support grasslands or even forests in their many different forms. And more importantly in our human-centered world, these patterns of moisture and temperature will determine what crops can be grown or what livestock can be supported to feed ourselves.
It has shaped the rise and fall of empires in history. And last but not least, climate has shaped even the way we look ourselves as humans.
The secret code of our planet's various climates was cracked long ago by the founder of modern climatology, Wladimir Köppen. He developed a system based around observation of vegetation in different parts of the world and how the rainfall and temperature varied in these regions throughout the year. And he broke them down into five broad categories of climate
which roughly started at the equator and moved out toward the poles.
These run like this: Tropical, Dry, Temperate, Continental, and Polar.
With later refinements, these broad categories were further subdivided based upon distribution of rainfall and temperature through a full year. Together these give us the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system of today.
In this series, we're going to be looking at each of these different climate types showing you real places in the world where they exist, why they are that way, and revealing the exact climate type that each and every major world city lies in.
So, if you want to know what to wear on your next holiday or you really do want to learn more about our world then this series is for you.
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Thanks for watching this introduction, and I'll see you in the first of the climate videos from the tropical rainforest.