What is the climate?
The climate is the 'average' of the weather over decades, in a given place.
Contents
We often confuse the climate with today’s weather. Yet these are two different things — and understanding the difference is already to understand what matters most.
A matter of the long run
The climate describes the usual behaviour of the atmosphere in a given place, observed over a long period — by convention, at least 30 years. It covers the typical temperatures of each season, the amounts of rain, the prevailing winds, the humidity.
In other words: the climate is what you can expect. The weather is what you get on any given day.
The climate is what makes you choose your wardrobe; the weather is what decides your outfit for the day.
Tunisia’s climate
Tunisia has a Mediterranean climate in the north — hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters — which becomes semi-arid and then arid as one moves south towards the Sahara. This is why rain there is both scarce and very unevenly distributed, in space as in time.
Why it matters
When we speak of climate change, we are not talking about a day warmer than usual, but about a lasting shift in these averages: summers that grow longer, rains that become scarcer or more concentrated, thresholds crossed more often. It is this underlying drift that has concrete consequences.
Going further
So you never again confuse the two notions: Weather or climate: what’s the difference?