WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF THE WEATHER? - ENVIRONMENT - 2025

The main elements of the climate are the levels of average precipitation, temperatures, humidity, atmospheric pressure, cloud cover and wind.

These elements make up the conditions under which living beings in a given area subsist and develop.

This geographical delimitation is one of the intrinsic characteristics of the climate; it is limited to a specific space and comes to describe it as in the case of heat in the tropics, cold at the poles, etc.

The climate depends on factors such as latitude, topography, vegetation, the presence or absence of bodies of water and their currents, or the proximity of the sea.

For this reason, to define the climate of a given territory, sufficient time must elapse for the different atmospheric situations to occur that would be expected given its topographic characteristics, its location, etc.

The 6 main elements of the climate

1- Temperature

Clouds, dust, and water vapor in the atmosphere reflect half of the solar energy that enters the earth into space, while the remaining half is absorbed by the land and the sea and returned as heat to the atmosphere..

That heat energy that accumulates in the air, is the temperature and can vary over the course of the day or days by the location of the earth with respect to the sun (rotation and translation).

The units of measurement used to measure temperature are: degrees Celsius or centigrade, degrees Kelvin and degrees Fahrenheit. And the instruments used in this task are: the thermometer and the thermograph.

The measurements that are taken of the temperature, generally, are plotted on a climate map using isotherms.

2- Precipitation

Or rain, is the culmination of a meteorological process with the fall of water, in liquid or gaseous state, to the earth's surface.

An important part of the water that falls in this process goes to the water bodies and the rest evaporates.

The amount of rain that falls in a given space depends, to a great extent, on the latitude and the presence of bodies of water. The areas near the Earth's equator are those that normally register the highest amount of rainfall in a year.

The amount of water that falls during a year in a specific territory gives rise to what is known as the rainfall index. This index is expressed in millimeters per square meter.

The rain gauge is the device used to measure the rainfall index of a place, and the rain gauge is the device used to graphically represent said index.

The precipitations have a classification: convective, cyclonic, and orographic. This classification is due to the way in which the air mass that originated it rose into the atmosphere.

3- Humidity

Basically it is water vapor present in the atmosphere and depends on temperature and rainfall.

In most climates there is some degree of humidity, even in the hottest climates. In fact, the higher the temperature, the more potentially humid that space is.

The instruments used for its measurement and recording are the hygrometer and the psychrometer. The results of these measurements are expressed in percentages.

There is a concept of relative humidity that refers to the amount of humidity in relation to the number of air molecules, and as it depends on temperature (inversely proportional), it fluctuates or changes during the course of a day.

4- Atmospheric pressure

This element corresponds to the weight of the atmosphere on a given surface. Its values, which are expressed in millibars, depend on the altitude.

The higher the territory, the less atmospheric pressure it must have. For this reason it is higher at sea level than at the top of the mountains.

The average atmospheric pressure at sea level is approximately 1,013.25 millibars.

The so-called pressure charts produced by a barograph are the way to graphically represent the two types of atmospheric pressure that exist: high and low.

This climatic element is measured with the barometer and is expressed in pascals (Pa).

5- Cloudiness

When the relative humidity rises and the water molecules bond to dust or ash particles, clouds form, which are kept up due to the small and light dimensions of the water particles.

Clouds are indicators of the presence of fronts (two air masses of different temperatures), humidity and the possibility of rain, among other meteorological phenomena.

Clouds can move in a direction other than that of the wind and can be the prelude to precipitation.

Atmospheric pressure and humidity affect the shape, size and type of cloud that forms. Precisely that typology or classification was proposed by Luke Howard, taking into account the shape and behavior of these gaseous masses:

• Low clouds: Stratus, nimbostratus, stratocumulus, cumulus, towering cumulus and cumulonimbus
• Middle clouds: Altostratus, altocumulus, altocumulus lenticularis.
• High clouds: Cirrus, cirrocumulus and cirrostratus.

6- Wind

To speak of wind is to speak of air in horizontal movement caused by differences in atmospheric pressure.

There are different types of wind:

• Planetariums: trade winds, eastern poles, western braves, and southern winds.
• Continental: Asian monsoons, sea breeze and cyclonic winds.
• Local: depend on the region.

It is measured in km / h, for which an anemometer is used.

The wind intervenes in the reduction of humidity, the formation of storms and the evaporation of water.

Climatic categories

Although traveling the world you can find innumerable types of landscapes with their particular climate, the climate could be classified into three large categories:

1. Warm: it is a type of climate in which temperatures are usually high due to constant solar radiation. It refers to areas near the terrestrial Ecuador.
2. Temperate: it has moderate temperatures because it occurs in areas of medium latitude.
3. Polar: as its name implies, it normally occurs in polar circles with temperatures below 10 ° Celsius, during the warmest period.

However, each of these categories could be broken down into more specific sub-categories, namely:

• Tropical: it occurs in areas with constant rainfall and medium to high temperatures. Depending on the amount of rainfall it can be subdivided into tropical humid and tropical dry.
• Dry: a type of climate with little or no precipitation that can be: arid or semi-arid.
• Moderate: this type of climate is classified as: Mediterranean, humid subtropical and marine on the west coast.
• Continental: classified as humid continental and sub-arctic.
• Polar: within this type of climate you can find another classification: tundra and ice cap.
• Highland climate.

References

1. Auburn University (s / f). Weather elements. Recovered from: auburn.edu.
2. Environment and Climate Change Canada (2015). Weather elements. Recovered from: www.gc.ca.
3. Geoenzycopadia (s / f). Weather elements. Recovered from: geoenciclopedia.com.
4. Oliver Allen. The Planet Earth Series. Ed. Thomas Lewis. (Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1983) P. 95-96.
5. Cultural Deputy Manager of Banco de la República (2015). Climate: elements and factors in Luis Ángel Arango Virtual Library. Recovered from: banrepcultural.org.