Scales of global climate

• recall that climate is loosely defined as "average weather"
• however, you need to be careful of what geographic area you are talking about
• need to define climate on different spatial scales:
  • microclimate - near the ground over your front yard
  • mesoclimate - over a field or few fields (a few square kilometers)
  • macroclimate - scale of a state or country
  • global climate - over entire earth

we will focus on large-scale climate

• indeed, climate extremes exist on the planet, so what controls climate???