29^th World Climate Congress

Climate Change and Climatology

Climatology, branch of the atmospheric sciences concerned with both the description of climate and the analysis of the causes of climatic differences and changes and their practical consequences. Climatology includes the systematic and regional studies of atmospheric conditions i.e. weather and climate. Both climatology and meteorology are branches of physical science that deal with the weather. While they are related to one another in many ways, they aren’t the same thing. Dynamic climatology is the study of large-scale patterns and how they can be used to understand global weather. Physical climatology is the study of physical processes such as evaporation, cloud formation, aerosol dispersal, and more. Paleoclimatology deals with the reconstruction of past climates using fossil evidence, ice cores, and tree rings. Climate indices are large-scale weather patterns that are consistent and measureable. The goal of an index is to combine a number of factors into a large, generalized description of either air or ocean phenomena that can be used to track the global climate system.