Climate Variability

MANAAL B170567CE
ARUN B170589CE
CLIMATE?
What is Climate?
• "average weather,”

• measurement of the mean and variability of relevant quantities

of certain variables (such as temperature, precipitation or wind)
over a period of time, ranging from months to thousands or
millions of years.

• The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World

Meteorological Organization (WMO).
 weather

• Weather reflects short-term conditions of the

atmosphere
• the state of the atmosphere at a particular place
and time as regards heat, cloudiness, dryness,
sunshine, wind, rain, etc.
What is the Climate System?
• the atmosphere
• the hydrosphere
• the cryosphere
• land surface
• the biosphere
Season
• A season is a division of the year
based on changes in weather,
ecology, and the number of daylight
hours in a given region.
Climate Variability
• Climate Variability is defined as variations in the mean state
and other statistics of the climate on all temporal and
spatial scales, beyond individual weather events.
• The term "Climate Variability" is often used to denote
deviations of climatic statistics over a given period of time
(e.g. a month, season or year) when compared to long-term
statistics for the same calendar period. Climate variability is
measured by these deviations, which are usually termed
anomalies.
CLIMATE
CHANGE
What is Climate Change?
• Climate change refers to a statistically significant variation
in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability,
persisting for an extended period (typically decades or
longer).

• Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or

external factors such as persistent changes to the
atmosphere or changes in land use.
• "a change of climate which is attributed directly or
indirectly to human activity that alters the composition
of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to
natural climate variability observed over comparable
time periods”
• Increase in amount of green hoise gases leads to increased
global warming.
Climate
variability Climate change
What is the difference between Climate
Variability and Climate Change?

climate variability climate change

• climate variability looks at
changes that occur within
smaller timeframes, such as
a month, a season or a year
• climate change considers
changes that occur over a
longer period of time,
typically over decades or
longer.
 the curve of the
frequency
distribution
representing the
probability of
specific
meteorological
events changes. The
curve may be
modified either in
amplitude, shifted
about a new mean,
or both.
Natural climate variability
• Natural climate variability refers to the variation in climate
parameters caused by nonhuman forces.
• There are two types of natural variability: those external and
internal to the climate system.
types of natural variability

external factors

• Variations in the sun, volcanic eruptions, and

changes in the orbit of the Earth around the
sun exert an external control on climate
variability.
ICE AGES
As the earth moves
away from sun,
Solar energy
received from sun
also decreases
As the tilt
angles
increases,
season becomes
more extreme
in the higher
latitudes
Due to Internal factors
• Natural variability is also influenced by processes internal to
the climate system that arise, in part, from interactions
between the atmosphere and ocean.
• These components exchange mass, momentum and energy
on all time scales
• As a consequence, global or regional scale climate variables
fluctuate somewhat regularly
Natural variability due to internal factors
(examples)
• North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)
• Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO)
• Pacific North American pattern (PNA)
• Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)
• El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
• Northern Annular Mode (NAM; previously called the Arctic
Oscillation, AO)
• Southern Annular Mode (SAM; previously called the Antarctic
Oscillation, AAO).
El Nino Southern Oscillation
• It is a large scale ocean-atmosphere climate interaction that
originates in the Pacific ocean but spreads across the world.
• El Niño is linked to a period of warming in the central and
east-central Equatorial Pacific region.
• typically last from 9 – 12 months
• Irregular (2-7 years)
Effects of ENSO
• Contrast regions in the Ohio Valley and Pacific Northwest
experience drier than average conditions
• Strong winds typically push warm waters from South
America and drive them toward Indonesia.
• There are more rain clouds produced over this part of the
warm Pacific waters.
• These clouds travel inland and cause more rain than on
average in Southern and Central America and in the United
States
Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

• mid-latitude Pacific basin.

• The PDO is detected as warm or cool surface waters in the
Pacific Ocean, north of 20°N.
• Over the past century, the amplitude of this climate pattern
has varied irregularly at interannual-to-interdecadal time
scales
Pacific North American pattern (PNA)

• The Pacific-North America (PNA) pattern is one of the most

prominent modes of low-frequency variability in the
Northern Hemisphere extratropics, appearing in all months
except June and July.
• The spatial scale of the PNA pattern is most expansive in
winter
• During this period, the Aleutian center spans most of the
northern latitudes of the North Pacific
THANKS
MY HONESTY = MY HAPPINESS