Weather and Climate: What’s the Difference?

The weather forecast predicts a heat wave in a week. Climate scientists predict a global heat wave of the next 50 years. One of these is weather, and one is climate. So what exactly is the difference?

Dr. Otis Brown, University of Miami
Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get. Weather, this is the day to day – what we actually see. Climate, that’s what we expect.

In other words, while weather describes the conditions on a specific day in a very specific area, climate depicts the average conditions in a general region, and because climate and weather are on different time scales, there are unique ways to measure them.

Dr. Otis Brown, University of Miami
Weather models move forward from seconds to minutes to hours to days. Climate models start with some average situation and try to look at how the mean situation is going to change over years or decades.

We see weather models used all the time on TV. They help us figure out whether or not to pack an umbrella, but climate models help us make other longer-range decisions from seasonal occurrences like El Niño to ones that stretch out much further like global warming.

Dr. Otis Brown, University of Miami
Climate has been viewed as “What do I want to leave for two generations in the future?” rather than “Does it really matter to me?”

As we look now at the investments we need to make, whether it’s infrastructure, or whether it’s new power plants, or new highways; Do you move communities, do you elevate them, what’s the answer? Whatever it is, it’s not cheap. And so, we as a society are going to be making those investments over the next 10, or 20, or 30 years. And so we need to have a much better understanding of the impacts of climate change.