Meteorology is the science that investigates the physical processes occurring in Earth's atmosphere related to weather and climate. The knowledge obtained from the study of atmospheric conditions, such as pressure, temperature, wind, humidity, precipitation, clouds and solar radiation form the basis of meteorological research and weather forecasting.

Meteorological data and research are essential to the investigation of the changes affecting the Earth's climate, they are also instrumental in establishing the patterns of weather and climatic phenomena and for the determination of the dispersion of atmospheric pollutants. Meteorological data are critical to long term studies involving acid rain patterns or ozone layer depletion.

Although they describe fundamentally similar processes and atmospheric attributes (e.g., temperature, humidity, etc.), weather relates to short term meteorological phenomena that occurs over days or weeks. In contrast, climate relates to long term conditions and processes take place over months, seasons, years, etc.

Weather conditions...