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So, how does the climate relate to the weather we experience on a day to day basis? We know from experience that the weather can be very different from one day to the next, let alone from one year to the next, without any change in the climate.
Suprisingly, dice are a good way to think about the difference between weather and climate...
The animation below allows you to choose how many times to role a dice and then see how often you get each of the six sides. Try a low number of rolls, then try some larger number of rolls and see what happens:
Throw the die a few hundred times. What is the average (mean) of the scores? The more throws, the closer the average gets to 3.5. If you were to throw the die one more time, you would not be able to predict the number that the die would land on, as the probability of throwing each number is the same. However, you could be very confident that the mean would still be 3.5.
But what has this got to do with weather and climate?
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Content last updated: 13/12/2005
About our expert
Sylvia Knight - a climate scientist - works with the climateprediction.net project, which is trying to produce the most complete forecast of 21st century climate ever attempted. She is responsible for communicating the aims and results of the experiments to as wide an audience as possible.
Sylvia has a degree in Natural Sciences and a PhD in Meteorology, and is co-author of the Open University short course Weather and Climate Modelling.
