What is Earth's Global Climate?

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On a global scale the climate consists of the atmosphere and the oceans attempting to balance the searing heat at the tropics with the frigid conditions at the poles. As I am sure you are aware the tilt on the earths axis complicates things by regulating the seasonal daylight amount received with a gradient modulated by latitude. This is even further complicated by the Southern Hemisphere being dominated by oceans and the northern hemisphere surface area being dominated by continents.

To further complicate matters the Earth has an orbit which causes it to be roughly 3.5 million miles closer to the Sun during winter in the northern hemisphere. This causes the Earth to receive about 6.9% more solar energy during perihelion relative to aphelion. The dynamics of the continously varying solar radiation and axial tilt are far to complicated for the most sophisticated computer models to handle.

So, the best answer I can give you is, Earth's climate is complicated, but I think we will eventually understand it, in another 100 years....Show more

Hahah, no, it isn't too hard to answer. It's actually an interesting question. I can't find any reading material on the subject though, so my answer will have to come straight from my fantastical brain.

I'm not sure that the idea of a global climate is meaningful. There are many different climate zones all across the world, from dry and cold to warm and moist. It's more helpful, I think, to look at each zone individually, or look at the ways the different climates interact. In the case of the current planetary warming, I'd want to look at how the warming planet is going to affect different regions of the globe; how it will affect precipitation patterns in arid desert regions, or how it will affect food production in the mid latitudes, for instance.

If had to give a, "average global climate" for the planet as it currently is, I suppose I'd say it was warm and moist, with relatively turbulent atmosphere.

That's all I've got for now. I'll think about it some more, and if anything comes to me I'll add it....Show more

Last interglacial period (Carboniferous) is noted as being much like our present day environment.Glaciation periods had temps around 59F.The last part is a little tricky but what I understood there was a -5degree variance during a 100,000year spread.
You got to stop this......Show more

All I need to say is in this article....
Yahoonews 12/30/07 "2007 A year of weather records!"...Show more

Please don't muddy the argument with common sense and facts. You must hate all little children and the Earth....Show more