Distinguish between the terms weather and climate, and briefly discuss how each affects species distribution within ecosystems

What will be an ideal response?


Weather describes short-term atmospheric conditions such as temperature, moisture content, wind, precipitation, barometric pressure, solar radiation, and other characteristics. Climate is an area's long-term pattern of atmospheric conditions. Weather can cause annual changes in population size, but climate tends to have a much larger and longer-term influence over geographic distribution of organisms. Confusion of these two concepts leads to a great deal of public misconception about the nature of global climate change. Thus, a cold winter in New England or Florida may be reported as proof that global climate change is not a valid concept, or an unusually hot summer may exaggerate the long-term processes of climate change.

Environmental & Atmospheric Sciences

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Environmental & Atmospheric Sciences