1 00:00:01,800 --> 00:00:04,320 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. 2 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:09,840 Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here with a classic episode 3 00:00:09,840 --> 00:00:13,119 Speaker 1: from our archives. In this one, we wanted to really 4 00:00:13,280 --> 00:00:17,320 Speaker 1: clear up the differences between two related but separate concepts, 5 00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:24,480 Speaker 1: weather versus climate. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. You 6 00:00:24,560 --> 00:00:29,000 Speaker 1: might remember when in Republican Senator James Inhoff of Oklahoma 7 00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:32,240 Speaker 1: set out to refute the quote hysteria over global warming 8 00:00:32,440 --> 00:00:35,879 Speaker 1: by tossing a snowball around inside the US Capital. The 9 00:00:35,960 --> 00:00:38,960 Speaker 1: obvious implication was, how could the climate be changing that 10 00:00:39,040 --> 00:00:42,479 Speaker 1: radically from humans burning fossil fuels and pumping greenhouse gases 11 00:00:42,479 --> 00:00:45,560 Speaker 1: into the atmosphere, since we still have snowfall and chilly 12 00:00:45,600 --> 00:00:49,000 Speaker 1: temperatures on a winter day. But even if you're not 13 00:00:49,159 --> 00:00:51,720 Speaker 1: a U. S. Senator from an oil producing state, you 14 00:00:51,880 --> 00:00:54,640 Speaker 1: might be wondering how it is that scientists can predict 15 00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:57,320 Speaker 1: climate trends over many years but can't predict what the 16 00:00:57,320 --> 00:01:00,760 Speaker 1: weather will be three weeks from today. Reason is that 17 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:04,880 Speaker 1: weather and climate are two very different things. Basically, whether 18 00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:07,480 Speaker 1: it is what happens today or tomorrow or this week, 19 00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:11,200 Speaker 1: it's the day to day variations. Climate, meanwhile, happens over 20 00:01:11,240 --> 00:01:15,039 Speaker 1: many years. It's the combined long term average of weather events. 21 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:19,440 Speaker 1: Scientists look at climate in terms of fixed thirty year periods. 22 00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:23,200 Speaker 1: Right now, for example, scientists are comparing the daily temperature 23 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:28,720 Speaker 1: to the period that started in nine and ended in one. 24 00:01:28,880 --> 00:01:31,760 Speaker 1: They'll shift forward ten years and start comparing temperatures to 25 00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:37,479 Speaker 1: the period between, and so on. Scientists rely on thirty 26 00:01:37,560 --> 00:01:39,720 Speaker 1: year periods because it's an amount of time that's long 27 00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:42,679 Speaker 1: enough to produce meaningful comparisons, but just short enough that 28 00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:46,160 Speaker 1: any changes that occur will be subtle without being imperceptible. 29 00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:49,440 Speaker 1: Twenty years might not show enough change, and fifty years 30 00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:52,680 Speaker 1: might be too drastic. To make sense of those, thirty 31 00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:55,040 Speaker 1: year periods help us put the weather on a particular 32 00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:58,680 Speaker 1: day in the right context. Comparing the temperature on December 33 00:02:00,080 --> 00:02:02,400 Speaker 1: the same day a hundred years ago wouldn't provide that 34 00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:05,160 Speaker 1: much useful information because the climate was too different then, 35 00:02:05,680 --> 00:02:08,040 Speaker 1: but comparing it to the average of the temperature readings 36 00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:12,440 Speaker 1: for every December five between, when the climate conditions were 37 00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:15,080 Speaker 1: pretty much constant, makes it possible to say whether a 38 00:02:15,160 --> 00:02:19,040 Speaker 1: given December five is an unusually cold or warm day. 39 00:02:19,639 --> 00:02:22,560 Speaker 1: We spoke with Jonathan Martin, a professor of atmospheric and 40 00:02:22,600 --> 00:02:26,520 Speaker 1: oceanic studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison. He explained, 41 00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:30,400 Speaker 1: or trying to compare apples to apples when it comes 42 00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:34,520 Speaker 1: to prediction, whether in climate are also very different. Weather forecasting, 43 00:02:34,600 --> 00:02:37,880 Speaker 1: Martin explains, is based upon observation of conditions that are 44 00:02:37,919 --> 00:02:41,480 Speaker 1: already occurring in real time in the atmosphere. Because those 45 00:02:41,480 --> 00:02:44,160 Speaker 1: conditions only exist for a short time. Whether it can 46 00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:47,839 Speaker 1: be reliably forecast only over relatively short periods of ten 47 00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:51,680 Speaker 1: to fourteen days at most, though Martin said that's theoretical, 48 00:02:51,880 --> 00:02:55,840 Speaker 1: My confidence ends at day eight. Envisioning climate, in contrast, 49 00:02:55,960 --> 00:02:59,280 Speaker 1: is much more low resolution. Scientists are trying to project 50 00:02:59,320 --> 00:03:01,359 Speaker 1: what the trend will be over a long period, not 51 00:03:01,480 --> 00:03:03,440 Speaker 1: what the weather will be like on a specific day 52 00:03:03,480 --> 00:03:06,800 Speaker 1: fifty or a hundred years from now. That involves gathering 53 00:03:06,800 --> 00:03:10,040 Speaker 1: and crunching huge amounts of data in powerful computers and 54 00:03:10,080 --> 00:03:14,360 Speaker 1: doing modeling. We also spoke with Jeffrey S. Duke's director 55 00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:17,960 Speaker 1: of the Climate Change Research Center at Purdue University. He said, 56 00:03:18,360 --> 00:03:21,400 Speaker 1: in one sense, climate does not affect weather. It's a 57 00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:24,320 Speaker 1: description of the weather over a long period. You could 58 00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:26,360 Speaker 1: turn that around and say that climate provides you with 59 00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:28,680 Speaker 1: information about how likely you are to get a given 60 00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:30,840 Speaker 1: type of weather at a given time of year. But 61 00:03:30,919 --> 00:03:33,799 Speaker 1: historically the climate has been determined by the weather over 62 00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:38,440 Speaker 1: long periods. He continued. In another sense, though, climate for 63 00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:41,280 Speaker 1: a given location is determined by a bunch of factors, 64 00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:44,000 Speaker 1: such as the latitude and position on the planet, which 65 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:46,480 Speaker 1: affects how it is influenced by the circulation of the 66 00:03:46,480 --> 00:03:50,040 Speaker 1: atmosphere and oceans, and the daytime heating of continents. Climate 67 00:03:50,120 --> 00:03:52,640 Speaker 1: is also influenced by the composition of the atmosphere, the 68 00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:55,720 Speaker 1: transport of water from soil to air by plants, and 69 00:03:55,840 --> 00:03:59,200 Speaker 1: other factors. On a given day, the sum of all 70 00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:02,360 Speaker 1: these influences determines the weather, but as some of these 71 00:04:02,440 --> 00:04:05,400 Speaker 1: larger scale factors change over time, they will drag the 72 00:04:05,440 --> 00:04:10,080 Speaker 1: weather and the climate along with them. In recent years, 73 00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:12,640 Speaker 1: some of the sharp distinction between weather and climate has 74 00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:16,560 Speaker 1: blurred slightly as scientists have used increasingly sophisticated models and 75 00:04:16,600 --> 00:04:19,440 Speaker 1: accumulated knowledge and an effort to figure out the extent 76 00:04:19,520 --> 00:04:22,599 Speaker 1: to which some specific weather events, say a hurricane, a 77 00:04:22,640 --> 00:04:25,760 Speaker 1: heat wave, or a monster snowstorm, is actually a function 78 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:29,280 Speaker 1: of climate change driven by humans releasing greenhouse emissions into 79 00:04:29,279 --> 00:04:33,360 Speaker 1: the atmosphere. By running thousands of computer simulations, they can 80 00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:36,719 Speaker 1: conduct what if experiments, seeing how the atmosphere would behave 81 00:04:36,760 --> 00:04:40,640 Speaker 1: if you removed one factor or another. Although such analysis 82 00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:43,480 Speaker 1: is still a work in progress, Martin thinks that eventually 83 00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:45,880 Speaker 1: it will be possible to determine the extent to which 84 00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:49,479 Speaker 1: specific weather events are influenced by climate change. Some of 85 00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:52,720 Speaker 1: that research is already bearing results. The National Oceanic and 86 00:04:52,720 --> 00:04:56,920 Speaker 1: Atmospheric Administration presented a paper in December in which they 87 00:04:56,920 --> 00:05:00,760 Speaker 1: concluded that three extreme weather events in that year's record 88 00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:04,400 Speaker 1: global heat, extreme heat over Asia and unusually warm waters 89 00:05:04,400 --> 00:05:06,960 Speaker 1: in the Bearing Sea would not have been possible without 90 00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:16,159 Speaker 1: human caused climate change. Today's episode is based on the 91 00:05:16,200 --> 00:05:18,960 Speaker 1: article weather in Climate, What's the Difference? On how stuff 92 00:05:18,960 --> 00:05:21,880 Speaker 1: works dot com written by Patrick J. Kaiger. Brain Stuff 93 00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:23,839 Speaker 1: is production of Our Heart Radio in partnership with how 94 00:05:23,880 --> 00:05:26,119 Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. 95 00:05:26,560 --> 00:05:29,680 Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, 96 00:05:29,760 --> 00:05:32,520 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.