Climate Weather Continuum Frank

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Climate Weather Continuum Frank
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Weather and Climate from a GIS Perspective(random
talking pointspay no attention)

• Hard
• N-dimensional phenomena
• Real-time
• Weather- dynamic geography structure and form
  are changing in real time
• Very complex data models, difficult to archive
  and analyze
• Cue Data Model (lead up to this)

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What do Climatologists have to say?
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What do Climatologists have to say

• Climatologists rock and weather people totally
  suck (Smart Guy- 1998)

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• Hi Frank - well the old saw is that climate is
  what you expect, and weather is what you get
  ....
• In terms of perspectives the differences often
  have to do with the focus of the different
  communities. Weather models and forecasters are
  interested in now and tomorrow. Climate forecasts
  typically refer to future seasons or decades.
  Often weather data is not archived, and this
  creates problems, as does the short period of
  record for many observational data sets. (Chris
  Funk)

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• Climatologists are very content to model monthly
  values at a 1-degree spatial resolution, or even
  coarser. Meteorologists are much more concerned
  with higher-frequency (both time and space)
  information. Because of this, the processes they
  may be looking at are different. Climatologists
  are not so concerned with squall lines in West
  Africa, but on a daily basis these phenomena may
  be responsible for significant rain events, and
  even 12-hour satellite imagery may miss them
  entirely. (Greg Husak)