SOCIAL SCIENCE: WEATHER AND CLIMATE

WEATHER AND CLIMATE

Weather is the atmospheric conditions present in a specific place and time. 

We talk about four different factors when we talk about weather:

• Temperature: It is a measure of how hot or cold the air is. We use Celsius scale.
• Humidity: how much water vapour is present in the air.
• Wind: moving air that can move at many different speeds.
• Precipitation: water that falls to the ground from the atmosphere.

- Rain is the name given to water droplets.

- Drizzle is a light rain.

- The mixture of rain and snow is what we call sleet.

- Hail is formed by little balls of ice..

- When the little droplets form ice crystals is what we call snow.

WEATHER PREDICTION

Professional meteorologists predict weather by using:

- Weather balloons

- Weather satellites

  These instruments high into the atmosphere send their readings 

to a weather station on the ground.

Once they have the data, they can put it in graphs to  interpret the

 information and make predictions.

We use the data collected to predict weather for the near future. 

We can see these weather forecasts on TV, the internet, in newspapers 

or hear about them on the radio. 

We use weather maps with symbols to show visual predictions.

   

CLIMATE
Climate describes the main weather characteristics of a place. 
There are three main climate categories in planet Earth.

Temperate climates have mild weather with hot summers and cold winters. The most densely populated parts of the world lie in this region.

Tropical climates are warm all year round and have rainy seasons. Countries with this climate lie between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. This is where we can find tropical rainforests.

Polar climates are cold all year around. Winter brings darkness and temperatures as low as -50 ºC. It is also very cold in summer

CLIMATES IN SPAIN

In Spain we can find 5 main types of climates:

Oceanic climates are mild and rainy. We can find them in areas such as Galicia, Cantabria and the western Pyrenees.

Mountain climates have very low temperatures in winter and mild temperatures in summer. They exist in areas at 1.200 metres or above

Mediterranean climates experience high temperatures in summer and mild winters.

Subtropical climates have mild temperatures all year round. We can find it in the Canary Islands.

Mediterranean- Continental climates experience very low temperatures in winter and very high ones in summer. 

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