6.2.1—Climate definition
- Syllabus
- First assessment 2026
- Objective
- 6.2.1
- Level
- HL
Use the Time Window to Separate Weather from Climate
Weather is a short-term atmospheric state; climate is a long-term pattern described by averages, ranges or frequencies.
Classify the observation by time window and statistic. Temperature and precipitation are core seasonal variables, but climate also includes variability and extremes.
Today’s storm is weather; a 30-year rise in summer rainfall variability is climate evidence.
No. It is weather noise; test the long-term distribution.
Climate is not a single average temperature and weather is not irrelevant—it is the data climate summarizes.