Resource

Climatology

June 4, 2007

What is a climatologist?

Climatologists are often confused with meteorologists, who study
current weather conditions and make short-term forecasts for
temperature, winds, and amount and type of precipitation.
Climatologists study long-term trends in the climate, which can affect
energy usage, food production, survival of endangered species, and even
human health and life expectancy.

As a climatologist, what will I be doing?

Climatology is one of the more adventurous environmental sciences. A
climatologist might drill holes in arctic ice, travel to the bottom of
the ocean, or journey to the tops of mountains to get data. You might
be working with marine animals and fitting them with sensors; sampling
plankton, fish, and insects; or maintaining sensor buoys out in the
middle of the oceans.

If you like computer science, you could do climatological studies using Geographic Information Systems. You might also write computer programs to model changes in climate or develop new ways of taking the Earth’s temperature.

What should I study if I want to become a climatologist?

All of the physical and biological sciences. Studying physics,
meteorology, biology, zoology, botany, paleontology, geology,
entomology, microbiology, oceanography, astronomy, math, computer
science, and, of course, climatology will give you solid grounding for
climatological research, which requires gathering and analyzing a lot
of data on ocean water temperatures, ocean current changes, atmospheric
conditions, solar conditions, plant and animal species, and more. For
example, if a particular plant is gradually extending its range
northward or higher in altitude that may be a sign that the climate is
warming.

What is paleoclimatology?

Paleoclimatologists study fossils, rock layers, air trapped in polar
ice caps, continental drift, and more in order to estimate what the
conditions were like on Earth hundreds, thousands, or millions of years
ago. This information is essential to the prediction of future
conditions. Most of the climatological studies on global warming today
involve paleoclimatology.

There are few degree programs in paleoclimatology. If you want to
study paleoclimates, you need to study geology, paleontology,
meteorology, climatology, physics, and astronomy. You will work with
teams of people to develop modeling algorithms based on past changes
that have occurred and to apply these algorithms to predict future
conditions.