1º British: Climate graphs

Hello everyone!

Now that we know the differences between weather and climate, and we know the different climate zones of the planet Earth (do you remember the video: Climate zones by Dr.Binocs from last week?), let’s talk about climate graphs.

A climate diagram is a graph that reflects the climate in a place. So simple!

Imagine that you have a table like this one:

As you can see, the table gives you information about the average temperature (ºC) and average amount of precipitation (mm) each month in a place.

To discover the place, we use that information to draw a climate graph. But how?

1. Take a piece of paper (if gridded (cuadriculado), better).
2. Draw an horizontal line with the name of the months.  
3. Now draw two vertical lines: the vertical line on the left will be for precipitations (mm) and the vertical line on the right for temperature (ºC).
4. Now, in the vertical line on the left, and starting by the corner, measure 1 cm and write one mark. This mark represents 20 mm of precipitation. Measured another cm and write another mark (that represents 40 mm of precipitation); another mark will represent 60 mm, etc.
5. Go back to the table. What is the number of precipitation in January? Draw a blue vertical line in your graph in the correspondant area (J for January). Do the same for the rest of the months.
6. Once that you have done all the precipitation bars, go to the vertical line on the right. Starting by the corner, measure 1 cm and write one mark. This mark represents 5 ºC of temperature. Measured another cm and write another mark (that represents 10 ºC of temperature); another mark will represent 15 ºC, etc.
7. Go back to the table. What is the number of temperature in January? Draw a red dot in your graph in the correspondant area (J for January). Do the same for the rest of the months.
8. Now that you have all the red dots, connect them together with one red line.

Your climate graph is complete! Well done! You should have a climate graph similar to this one:

Tip: remember something very important for avoiding mistakes. Blue bars are always for precipitation, meanwhile the red line is for temperature.

You can watch a revision video (13 minutes in English). Yes, I know it’s a long video but it is really well explained and detailed so you can see the whole process.

Ok. We now know how to do it but... what are climate graphs use for? Good question! Climate graphs provide information about the place. For example:

• what are the warmest months of the year? That will tell you if the place is in the Northern or the Southern hemisphere. Or, if temperatures are exactly the same all the year, if the place is in the Equator line!
• Are the temperature high all the year, mild or very low? That will tell you if the place is in the warm climate zone, the temperate zone of the cold zone.
• Are the precipitations abundant all the year, regular or it doesn’t rain? That will tell you if we are talking about a tropical area or a desert.

And when you have all the information, you can discover the type of landscape linked to that place and climate. My notes can help you with this because you can see an example of each climate graph and its landscape, just click HERE.

As this topic is maybe a bit complicated, we will have a special class tomorrow at TEAMS to explain this parts and solve doubts, ok?

And now, YOUR TASK for this week! Look at the following table (click on it to enlarge its size and read it better):

First, draw its climate graph.

Second, record a short video (between 2 and 4 minutes) showing it to the camera and answering the following questions about it:

• What is the range of temperature?
• How is the rainfall distributed through the year?
• Which type of climate do you think this climate graph is?
• Which type of landscape is typical in this place?

Send your video as attached file to blogeducativo08@gmail.com BEFORE MONDAY 18, MAY.

This is a mandatory activity and you will received a mark for it.