APPLIED CLIMATOLOGY

Applied climatology is the scientific analysis of statistical collective of individual

conditions of weather, collective in the light of a useful application for an operational
purpose. K. Smith (1987) defines applied climatology as the use of achieved and real-
time climatic information to solve a variety of social, economic and environmental
problems for clients and managers in fields such as agriculture, industry and energy.
So applied climatology is the study of the effects of climate on natural and social
systems. It examines the characteristics and consequences of the changing global
climate and considers the future for both natural and human environments.
Sources of Climatological Data
Recently there is greater dissemination of climatological data due to the services
provided by several weather agencies and meteorological departments. This has
enabled the climatologists to get access to climatic data for their studies. Some
relevant climatic data are also on the internet either free of cost or at a marginal fee.
So far as sources of collection of climatic data is concerned, it is broadly divided into
two types: Primary Sources and Secondary Sources
Primary sources of climatic data collection includes the processes where the
investigator himself/ herself goes to the field and collects climatic data using various
instruments like thermometers, radiometers (for measuring the amount of Infrared
radiation), moisture sensors et c.
Secondary sources of data are the data collected elsewhere and then compiled and
quality checked which then gets ready for the climatologists and researchers for use.
So the climatologists in this case do not collect the data themselves but rely on
external sources, agencies or various meteorological departments spread across the
world like World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), National Centre for
Atmospheric Research, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
India Meteorological Department (IMD), et c. Now-a-days, meteorological data is
also available on the internet. The data is finally re analysed by the climatologists and
various atmospheric variables are segregated for use in research or other climate
related studies.
Climate and Natural Systems
Our natural system comprises of all the five spheres, viz., lithosphere, atmosphere,
hydrosphere, biosphere and cryosphere. There is a continuous interaction between
these spheres and climate plays a major role in affecting different processes that
occurs within these systems. Processes in the atmosphere inherently affect other
spheres. Let us study the impact of climate on lithosphere.
1. Lithosphere
Lithosphere comprises of the rigid, outermost crust and the upper portion of mantle of
the earth. Various geomorphological processes takes place in the lithosphere and
climate happens to be a major driving factor that have direct impact on these
processes. Exogenetic processes includes denudational processes of weathering and
erosion which basically originates due to climate factors. These days the field of
climatic geomorphology is an emerging field and researchers study how temperature
and moisture affects the rate of weathering, soil formation, sub-surface freeze and
thaw et c. It was started as a distinct branch of geomorphology in the 20 th century in
France and Germany. Elements of climate like temperature, humidity, wind
circulation et c. affect various erosional processes like fluvial, aeolian, marine,
groundwater, glacial, peri-glacial et c. It is also a well known fact that spatial
variations in climatic parameters like temperature, humidity, precipitation, et c. leads
to variations in the landforms in different climatic regions. For example a region with
high mean annual temperature and humidity favours deep chemical weathering and
the steep slopes in these regions would have the presence of gullies. Also high
temperature and humidity favours dense vegetation on such slopes. So soil erosion,
sheet wash and other erosional activities are reduced to a great extent in slopes having
dense vegetation. Contrary to this, the slopes which have been cleared of natural
vegetation would experience active erosion. Humidity also leads to the events like
landslides, soil creep and other mass wasting activities along the slopes. Glaciers and
winds also shape the landforms. These are well established research frontiers for
climatic geomorphologist.
2. Atmosphere
Atmosphere is a gaseous envelope surrounding the earth and contains several gases as
well as minute suspended solid and liquid particles (aerosols). These are held by
earth’s force of gravity and support life. Nitrogen and oxygen are two major
constituent gases that make up about 99% of dry air in lower atmosphere. The
remaining one percent is constituted by argon, carbon dioxide, helium, methane,
hydrogen, nitrous oxide, ozone etc. Out of this one percent gas, few are greenhouse
gases like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapour et c. Due to human
activities like burning of fossil fuels, gases emanating from industries et cetra, the
percentage of greenhouse gases has increased. This has in-turn increased the
temperature of the atmosphere as these gases are transparent to incoming solar
radiation but traps the outgoing long wave terrestrial radiation and creates a warming
effect. A change in temperature would affect other climatic elements like humidity,
pressure et c. and have an adverse effect on all the other spheres. It would bring
change in landscape, water bodies, ice sheets, as well as biogeochemical cycles.
3. Hydrosphere
Hydrosphere is the discontinuous layer of water at or near the earth’s surface and
includes all liquid and frozen waters on surface and underground, in rocks and soil as
well as atmospheric water vapour. The processes operating in hydrosphere are
hydrological processes due to which water is in a constant state of motion and gets
transferred from one realm and form to other in a hydrological cycle. Climate is also
a major determinant of hydrological processes. Temperature and precipitation are
the two important climatic parameters that directly affect the amount, seasonality and
distribution of water available in different realms of hydrosphere like surface run-off,
overland flow, soil water retention or infiltration of rainwater, channel flow, storage et
c. If there is any change in global climate system, it affects the water on earth’s
surface and this changes the water balance in different realms. This also affects the
human systems like agriculture, fisheries, environmental management et c. Changes
in climatic parameters affect the salinity which also affects the hydrosphere. They
also have an impact on fisheries and coastal and marine ecosystem. Climate change
also affects the deep water circulation in the oceans by altering the thermohaline
(large scale ocean circulation driven by global density gradient) circulation. The
hydrological processes also gets affected due to human activities like deforestation,
urbanisation, industrialisation, concretisation et c. which results into a change of
climatic parameters either directly or indirectly.
4. Biosphere
Biosphere is the life supporting layer which surrounds our planet Earth and consists of
all living organisms (the biotic component), energy (the energy component) and
physical environment (abiotic component). Climatological impacts are felt in
biosphere in a number of ways and it affects the interactions between living
organisms themselves and also between living organisms and physical environment.
These interactions can be in the form of predator-prey relationships, disease and
insect infestations et c. The atmospheric processes are also responsible for these large
scale input-output mechanisms through biogeochemical cycles. They also have impact
on the soil composition, its vertical profile, soil moisture and its erosion.
5. Cryosphere
Cryosphere is the frozen part of the earth’s system. It includes ice and snow on land
as well as that found on water bodies. Snow covered areas on land includes
continental ice sheets found in Greenland, Antarctica as well as other areas of snow
and permafrost. The other part of cryosphere found on water bodies includes the
frozen parts of oceans near polar regions and also includes frozen rivers and lakes.
Climate has a lot of effect on the cryosphere. You must have read in a previous
module of this course that snow has very high albedo or reflectivity of the incident
shortwave solar radiation. This means that it reflects about 90% of the incident light
or it can be said that it has an albedo of 90%. A slightest increase in temperature
conditions would melt some snow and this would decrease the albedo of that part of
the cryosphere which increases the rate of melting of snow further. The conditions are
just the reverse when there is a decrease in temperature.