These differences can occur due to the sun angle at any particular spot, which varies by latitude from the tropics. Weather occurs primarily due to air pressure, temperature and moisture differences between one place to another. Weather does occur in the stratosphere and can affect weather lower down in the troposphere, but the exact mechanisms are poorly understood. Almost all familiar weather phenomena occur in the troposphere (the lower part of the atmosphere). Less common events include natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons and ice storms.
On Earth, the common weather phenomena include wind, cloud, rain, snow, fog and dust storms. The movement of mass ejected from the Sun is known as the solar wind.Ĭumulus mediocris cloud surrounded by stratocumulus A star's corona is constantly being lost to space, creating what is essentially a very thin atmosphere throughout the Solar System. However, the weather is not limited to planetary bodies. A famous landmark in the Solar System, Jupiter's Great Red Spot, is an anticyclonic storm known to have existed for at least 300 years. Studying how the weather works on other planets has been helpful in understanding how weather works on Earth. Human attempts to control the weather have occurred throughout history, and there is evidence that human activities such as agriculture and industry have modified weather patterns Earth's weather system is a chaotic system as a result, small changes to one part of the system can grow to have large effects on the system as a whole. Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location. Higher altitudes are cooler than lower altitudes, as most atmospheric heating is due to contact with the Earth's surface while radiative losses to space are mostly constant. Surface temperature differences in turn cause pressure differences. Over thousands of years, changes in Earth's orbit can affect the amount and distribution of solar energy received by Earth, thus influencing long-term climate and global climate change. On Earth's surface, temperatures usually range ±40 ☌ (−40 ☏ to 104 ☏) annually. Because Earth's axis is tilted relative to its orbital plane (called the ecliptic), sunlight is incident at different angles at different times of the year. Weather systems in the middle latitudes, such as extratropical cyclones, are caused by instabilities of the jet streamflow. The strong temperature contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the largest scale atmospheric circulations: the Hadley cell, the Ferrel cell, the polar cell, and the jet stream.
These differences can occur due to the Sun's angle at any particular spot, which varies with latitude. Weather is driven by air pressure, temperature, and moisture differences between one place and another. When used without qualification, "weather" is generally understood to mean the weather of Earth. Weather refers to day-to-day temperature, precipitation, and other atmospheric conditions, whereas climate is the term for the averaging of atmospheric conditions over longer periods of time. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy.