Introduction - The Global Climate System: Patterns, Processes, and Teleconnections - page 12

refrigeration, transportation, irrigation, genetic manipulation of agricultural
products, aquaculture, containment of rivers, etc.
Climate as a resource is taken for granted. Countries with climates that
have been favorable to agriculture and animal husbandry often take their
good climate conditions as normal. But climate information is also a resource.
Forecasts are a resource. International consultants are a resource, and so forth.
Governments usually leave it to the private sector to enhance the value of
climate to their specific activities.
''Problem climate'': its first use
About forty years ago ( 1966 ) geographer Glenn Trewartha published his topic,
The Earth's Problem Climates. Trewartha's selection of what he considered to
be the Earth's ''problem climates'' was based on information available before
1960. He described a problem climate as one that did not really conform to
what might be expected for a given latitude: ''Were the earth's surface homo-
geneous (either land or water) and lacking terrain irregularities, it may be
presumed that atmospheric pressure, winds, temperature, and precipitation
would be arranged in zonal or east-west belts'' (p. 3). He focused on ''regional
climatic aberrations,'' explicitly noting that he was writing for physical scien-
tists, not for the general public. ''It is designed to meet the needs of those
interested in the professional aspects of climate rather than of laymen. A
methodical description of all the earth's climates is not attempted, for many
areas are climatically so normal or usual that they require little comment in a
topic which professes to emphasize the exceptional'' (p. 6) [italics added].
Is such a statement still valid, given what we have learned about climate
since 1960? Are there really areas on the globe that could be viewed as
''climatically so normal or usual that they require little comment?'' Are
there exceptional ''problem climates?'' Should we also be asking questions
about societies' role, if any, in the existence of problem climates?
1.3.2 What is normal climate?
Maps such as those originally produced in 1914 by K¨ppen and later modified
by Trewartha, among others, depict the wide variety of normal climate types
on continents around the globe. Australia provides an example representation
of its so-called normal climate regime (Figure 1.6 ).
Such maps, while useful for educational purposes, are highly generalized
and do not capture the full range of climate behavior such as its anomalies.
Over time, the borders between climate zones will most likely shift, making
the value of these maps mainly as snapshots of climate regimes for given
periods of time. Nevertheless, they do provide a starting place for discussion
of climate regions on a worldwide basis.