We can’t experience climate directly. Every moment of life happens in a particular time and place. The climate we perceive is a metaphor for the sum of weather conditions over a chosen span of time and space. Knowing an area’s climate is like knowing a person: the sense of a personality develops through extended observation until it seems solid and tangible, but that sense is never more than an estimation and often has to be adjusted to account for new events. Ecosystems describe climate zones by where they grow. Weather statistics define climate using mathematical averages at particular
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