Science Lesson

What causes our weather? Why is it much warmer at the Equator than it is at the Poles? What are the trade winds?

As weather enthusiasts, these might be a few questions you find yourself asking. The Earth’s rotation and the Sun are the main causes of the diverse weather experienced in different parts of the world every day. A previous article published on theWeather Club explores the processes involved in creating atmospheric circulation cells and the impact they have on global weather patterns.

We have all experienced extreme weather in our lives – storms, extreme rainfall, heatwaves or droughts. In recent years, the question often arises how these events are linked to climate change and whether we are likely to see more of them in the future. This field of research is called “event attribution”. Our briefing paper “How does climate change affect weather” deals with this topic and explains the science behind attributing extreme weather events to climate change.

What is El Niño? 

The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a large-scale climatic phenomenon that originates in the tropical Pacific but affects global climate patterns. The warm phase is known as El Niño and the cold phase is La Niña. El Niño occurs irregularly every two to seven years and peaks around in winter. 

What causes an El Niño event?

How is Earth’s climate modelled and how does modelling help our understanding?

What is a climate model?

A beautiful and deadly natural phenomenon, lightning is simply a sudden, electrostatic discharge - a ‘spark’ or  ‘flash’ as charged regions in the atmosphere temporarily equalise themselves through this discharge. It is the polarity of lightning discharge that can affect the way it spreads and branches in space and time.