Weather vs Climate

At times, weather and climate have been spoken about in ways that would leave one to believe they meant the same thing. This article aims to express the difference between weather and climate and discuss how people’s experience with extreme weather may affect their perceptions about climate change.
Concerning the difference between climate and weather, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) states that the weather can change “over minutes, hours, days, and weeks,” and that “… climate describes what the weather is like over a long period of time in a specific area.”[i] Because of reports like NOAA’s State Climate Summaries, we expect Connecticut’s “summers to be warm and humid and the winters to be cold and snowy.”[ii]
Climate expectations are not random descriptions. According to Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the climate description comes from an analysis of 30-year chunks of weather patterns.[iii] Still, as the saying goes, “Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.” Therefore, we check the weather reports and dress accordingly.
Regardless of how you expect the climate to be, there are variations. The problem arises when we start to see patterns of extreme weather.
How does extreme weather shape a person’s perception about climate change? This question was the premise of several recent studies. In a study from 2021 entitled, “Local Weather Effects: Perception of Climate Change and Public Support for Government Intervention,” the authors showcased that partisan beliefs are a driver of climate change perception, but they also found that local weather experience was a factor.
When measuring beliefs in global warming, the authors used short term (one week prior to the study) unusual weather experience and long term (months to years) unusual weather experience to measure participants’ opinions. The authors observed, “that long-term weather variations have a larger significant effect on climate change opinions than short-term weather variations.” The authors added that while party identification formed an opinion on climate change, long-term unusual weather experiences can influence an individual's perception about “climate change as a serious threat and to favor government intervention in climate change mitigation.”[iv]
A study from 2014 suggested that changes to perceptions on climate change through extreme weather experiences could be due to the use of the phrase ‘climate change’ in place of ‘global warming.’[v] A 2024 study from Australia also examined the effects extreme weather experience had on people’s perceptions about climate change. The authors found that, “experiencing extreme weather only does not always increase the individual's risk perception…”[vi] For example, the authors observed that, “individuals with strong party affiliations, whether left or right, did not change their climate change risk perceptions even after experiencing extreme weather.” They add, “only those without party affiliations increase their risk perceptions after experiencing extreme weather.”
A New Norm: Climatologist Kevin Trenberth stated, “All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.”[vii] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that, “There will be an increasing occurrence of some extreme events unprecedented in the observational record with additional global warming,” and that these events may include heat waves, droughts, greater daily precipitation events, and even wildfires.[viii] These findings may support the idea that, “Extreme weather is the ‘new norm,”’ as has been expressed in the title of a recent World Meteorological Organization article.[ix]
Unseen Influence: Several studies have identified the fossil fuel industry as promoters of climate change denial. For instance, a 2023 study entitled, “Fossil fuel companies’ climate communication strategies: Industry messaging on renewables and natural gas,” stated that the use of social media has been utilized by the fossil fuel industry to delay transitions to renewable energy.[x] In particular, the authors discovered that 4 major fossil fuel companies tweeted about renewable energies whilst also mentioning natural gas. The study also states that fossil fuel companies have used Twitter, Inc. to express natural gas as a means of emissions reduction and a source of cleaner fuel.
In terms of natural gas being a clean fuel, the authors state, “natural gas emits the lowest amount of carbon dioxide per unit of energy when it is burned, so it is technically a cleaner fuel than coal or oil.” They add, “Natural gas is still, however, classified as a polluting fossil fuel.” In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency on their Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions page state, “Emissions from natural gas consumption represent 78% of the direct fossil fuel CO2 emissions from the residential and commercial sector in 2022.”[xi]
As asserted by the 2023 study, the fossil fuel industry’s practice of promoting natural gas as a better alternative along with renewable energies points to an intentional delay of policy against climate change. Professor Henry Shue, Emeritus Fellow at Merton College of Oxford, in his 2022 article sums up what delay means in regard to climate change prevention when he stated, “Delay is the new denial.”[xii]
As the climate changes, so will the weather pattern. More extreme weather may become more prevalent. It is important to keep our experiences in the realm of overarching trends. Gathering all data may mean not just using the experience of extreme weather, but also considering if party lines and industry motives have influenced one’s judgement, and examining how the climate has been and could be for a region, as well as around the world. In this way, a person can make a better judgement about the changes to the climate.
References:
[i] National Center for Environmental Information. What’s the Difference Between Weather and Climate? NOAA. Available from: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/weather-vs-climate#:~:text=What%20exactly%20is%20climate?%20Whereas%20weather%20refers,area.%20Different%20regions%20can%20have%20different%20climates.
[ii] Runkle J and Kunkel KE. 2022. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information State Climate Summaries 2022: Connecticut. Available from: https://statesummaries.ncics.org/chapter/ct/#:~:text=Its%20climate%20is%20characterized%20by,free%20seasons%20than%20inland%20areas.
[iii] Quincy S. 2020. Connecticut: Our Changing Climate. Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Available from: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/deep/education/kellogg/ct-changing-climate-booklet.pdf.
[iv] Kim JH, Seo MH, Sinclair B. 2021. Local Weather Effects: Perception of Climate Change and Public Support for Government Intervention. Social Science Quarterly DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12942.
[v] Capstick SB and Pidgeon NF. 2014. Public perception of cold weather events as evidence for and against climate change. Climate Change 122: 695-708. Available from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-1003-1.
vi] AI X, Han Z, and Zhang Q. 2024. Extreme weather experience and climate change risk perceptions: The roles of partisanship and climate change cause attribution. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2024.104511.
[vii] Trenberth KE. 2012. Framing the way to relate climate extremes to climate change. Climate change 115: 283-290. Available from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0441-5.
[viii] IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 3−32, doi: 10.1017/9781009157896.001.
ix] World Meteorological Organization. 2023. Extreme weather is the "new norm". Accessed Jan 2025; Updated n.d. Available from: https://wmo.int/media/news/extreme-weather-new-norm.
[x] Si Y, Desai D, Bozhilova D, Puffer S, Stephens JC. 2023. Fossil fuel companies' climate communication strategies: Industry messaging on renewables and natural gas. Energy Research & Social Science DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2023.103028.
[xi] EPA. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Available from https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#:~:text=Combustion%20of%20natural%20gas%20and,and%20commercial%20sector%20in%202022. (updated October 2024; accessed January 2025).
[xii] Shue H. 2022. Unseen urgency: Delay as the new denial. WIREs DOI: 10.1002/wcc.809.