Natural phenomenons that

impact the Worlds climate

Notes
Climate vs. Weather
-

Weather can change from minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, and

season-to-season. Climate, however, is the average of weather over time and
space.
An easy way to remember the difference is that climate is what you expect,
like a very hot summer, and weather is what you get, like a hot day with popup thunderstorms.
Volcanoes can have HUGE affects on the weather but typically, only the really
big eruptions will have noticeable effects on the climate.
Climate is what we Expect and Weather is what we Get.
El Nino and La Nina

Normal conditions: upwelling off the coast of Peru,

warm water piled up in the Western Pacific

El Nio conditions:
surface current reversed, pushing warm water toward the Eastern Pacific
Upwelling repressed Unusually warm water across Equatorial Pacific

La Nia: Stronger trade Winds than normal,

causing a strong upwelling of cold water in the Eastern Pacific

Sunspots
Sunspots are temporary phenomena on the surface of the Sun that appear
visibly as dark spots compared to surrounding regions. They are caused by
intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection and forms areas of
reduced surface temperature.
Sunspots and Climates
An influence of solar irradiance variations on Earths surface climate has been
repeatedly suggested, based on correlations between solar variability and
meteorological variables.
Low solar activity can enhance cold winters in northern Europe and the United
States, with little direct change in globally averaged temperature.
An eruption can cause warming and cooling.
An addition of carbon dioxide contributes to greenhouse warming.
An addition to sulfurous gases induces cooling, because they turn into droplets
of sulfuric acid that absorb and reflect sunlight, and cut down the amount of
heat that reaches the ground.
But most documented cases show a net cooling effect.
Benjamin Franklin
The first scientist to recognize the cooling pattern.
He linked the abnormal weather over Europe in 1783-84 to the great Laki
eruption in Iceland, which sent volcanic gases into the stratosphere and
released over 100 million tons of sulfur dioxide over just a couple of months
As much as the worlds industries release today in a year.
Most major eruptions only cause a temperature change of a fraction of a Kelvin,
which doesnt sound like much, but over an entire year it represents a large
amount of heat subtracted from the Earths budget.
Smaller eruptions dont have a very big effect on the climate.
Milankovitch Cycles
Named after a Serbain mathematician, Milutin Milankovitch

EXTREMEMLY long term effects that scientists think may be the cause of the ice
ages. These are movements of the Earth that affect the amount of solar
radiation that it gets.