Nature and Scope of Climatology: August 2018
Nature and Scope of Climatology: August 2018
net/publication/326879617
CITATIONS READS
0 44,087
1 author:
Sitender Malik
Chaudhary Ranbir Singh University (JIND)
14 PUBLICATIONS 44 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
All content following this page was uploaded by Sitender Malik on 07 August 2018.
1
Climatology Climatology
• Definitions • Definitions
– “Climatology is the science which studies the nature of – It may also be defined as “study of long term weather
climate, the causes and interpretation of its spatial conditions of a place or an area of varying spatial
variations and its association with the elements of scales over long period of time, of frequent and
natural environment and human activities” Critchfield infrequent weather phenomena, systematic study of
– “it is a science really an applied science whose climate and its distribution on the earth’s surface both
methods are strictly meteorological but whose aims horizontally and vertically, effects of human economic
and results are geographical” Oliver and Hidore, 2003 activities on different components of atmosphere
leading to weather and climate changes and effects of
weather and climate on man and his activities in
particular and other flora and fauna in general”
Nature of Climatology
• Climatology tries to study the
– Identification, demarcation and distribution of
different types of climate
2
Nature of Climatology Scope of Climatology
• Climatology tries to study the • The subject matter of climatology may be
– Identification, demarcation and distribution of described through its major branches
different types of climate – Physical and dynamic climatology
– Mode of origin of different types of climate – Regional climatology
– Causes and processes responsible for climatic – Applied climatology
variations both horizontally and vertically
– Different elements of weather and climate
– Interaction of weather and climate with human society
– Impacts of climate on human health and activities
including physiological and psychological aspects
3
Regional Climatology Regional Climatology
• The spatial variations in the combinations of • Microclimate
elements of weather and climate causes different – It varies in size from 1 meter to 100 meter horizontally
types of climate in different region of the world and from ground surface to 100 meter vertically
• The size of region over which similar climatic – It may represent the climate of a single crop field,
conditions are observed varies from a micro area single household, area around a single tree
(crop field) to macro area (a continent) – Data related to such climates are collected from
ground and it enables the investigator to generalise
• Thus regional climatology studies the differences variation of microclimatological processes operating
in climatic conditions of the areal units having over varying ground surfaces and their impact on
different spatial scales like Microclimate, local human being
climate, meso climate and macro climate. – Thus, it may also be included as part of applied
climatology
4
Regional Climatology Applied Climatology
• Macroclimate • It deals with
– It is also known as geoclimate or geographical climate – Climatic controls of human activities
– Its horizontal distance is more than 20 km to several – Application of climatic principles and knowledge to
hundred km and vertical extent from ground surface to solve various problems faced by human society
more than 6 km – How does man modify climate by introducing
– It may represent the climate of a country or a continent advertent and inadvertent changes in physical
like USA, China, Russia, India etc. environment
– It may be divided into descriptive climatology (study – Weather modifications by man e.g. cloud seeding and
of climatic characteristic of ground surface) and induced precipitation
synoptic climatology (analysis of dominant patterns of – Human biometeorology (reaction of human bodies to
atmospheric circulation) based on approach of analysis change in atmospheric environment)
Satellite Climatology
• It deals with
– Climate data obtained through satellite
5
View publication stats