Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
For example, with an axial tilt is 23°, and at a latitude of 45°, then the summer's peak sun angle is 68° (giving sin(68°) = 93% insolation at the surface), while winter's least sun angle is 22° (giving sin(22°) = 37% insolation at the surface). Thus, the greater the axial tilt, the stronger the seasons' variations at a given latitude. [4]
The smaller-scale weather systems – mid-latitude depressions, or tropical convective cells – occur chaotically, and long-range weather predictions of those cannot be made beyond ten days in practice, or a month in theory (see chaos theory and the butterfly effect). The Earth's weather is a consequence of its illumination by the Sun and the ...
The difference between climate and weather is usefully summarized by the popular phrase "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get." [ 16 ] Over historical time spans, there are a number of nearly constant variables that determine climate, including latitude , altitude, proportion of land to water, and proximity to oceans and mountains.
Because most of the planet's snow and ice lies at high latitude, decreasing tilt may encourage the termination of an interglacial period (and lead to an overall cooler climate) and the onset of a glacial period for two reasons: 1) there is less overall summer insolation, and 2) there is less insolation at higher latitudes (which melts less of ...
Places with continental climates are as a rule either far from any moderating effect of oceans or are so situated that prevailing winds tend to head offshore. [6] Such regions get quite warm in the summer, achieving temperatures characteristic of tropical climates but are colder than any other climates of similar latitude in the winter.
As the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes clear, while the planet has so far seen an average temperature rise of 1.2 degrees Celsius and will ...
A major key to shaping weather patterns worldwide is found in the tropical Pacific Ocean, far from any mainland. Known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), this climate phenomenon is the ...
A Köppen–Geiger climate map showing temperate climates for 1991–2020 The different geographical zones of the world. The temperate zones, in the sense of geographical regions defined by latitude, span from either north or south of the subtropics (north or south of the orange dotted lines, at 35 degrees north or south) to the polar circles.