Climatology

Climatology

Climatology is the field of meteorology that focuses on the study of climate and changes in climate. In other words, climatology can be defined as the study of weather patterns of a specific location in the atmosphere over a long period of time. The actual study of climate has existed on earth for a very long time, specifically since the 9th century. The first person to ever bring about the idea of studying earth's atmospheric movements or climate, in general, was a Chinese scientist named Shen Kuo. Shen Kuo was born in 1031 in the Hangzhou province of China and was a well-known mathematician, astronomer, and inventor. He is known for being the first scientist in history to physically study earth’s climate and record it. He would later die in Zhengzhou, China in 1095.

Shen Kuo

Climatology focuses on the “collective state of the atmosphere”. This means that when you study climatology, you focus on many “collective” factors, in other words, the different measures that hinder climate. The study of climatology is focused on the “Normal”. This means that it focuses on the average conditions of a specific location over a long period of time, typically 30 years. Climatologists use these 30 years to anticipate the conditions of the atmosphere in that range. For example, it is 2017, so climatologists can predict atmospheric conditions in December of this year using the conditions of December 1887.  Climatology studies the factors that influence weather/ the conditions of a location that drive it to have the type of climate that it has.

The field of climatology focuses on improving life for living beings around the world. Climatologists inform people how to minimize pollution and help maintain a climate that is healthy and safe enough for living organisms to thrive. Climatology also helps in understanding what changes in earth's atmosphere mean and what effect they have to the people living on earth. The study of climate also helps in determining future long-term atmospheric conditions at any given time. Long-term weather patterns give information that is helpful to the government and people in general so that they can be prepared for what is to come. Climatology also aids in important things like aviation, transAtlantic and transPacific travel by water, farming, determining the rising and falling of tides, and so on. Without climatology, the world will be amounted to a ticking time bomb, in other words, no one will know what happens next.