Recent letters to the editor indicate a common misunderstanding of the difference between meteorologists and climatologists. Without going into the argument for or against human-caused climate change, I should like to clarify this difference. Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere using traditional tools: the thermometer, barometer, anemometer, and hygrometer, along with modern tools such as radar, earth-observing satellites and computer modeling. Because of their effect on weather forecasting, the study of certain specific conditions, such as El Niño, the North Atlantic Oscillation, etc., is also important. The focus is on short term weather phenomena and forecasting, normally several days or weeks. Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time. Its tools are ice cores and tree rings, along with meteorological data accumulated over many years: rainfall, temperature, atmosphe...
My alarm clock goes off every morning at eight, except for the few times when I have a breakfast date. Usually I wake up about an hour before that, or at least I partly wake up. It is important that I remain in a “not quite awake but not quite asleep” state, because I consider that time as the germination period for whatever seeds happen to have blown into my head.