STATISTICAL MODELS FOR CLIMATIC CHARACTERIZATION OF SOME SELECTED ZONES OF KARNATAKA

Climate is a measure of average pattern of variation in temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, precipitation, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological variables in a given region over long periods of time. Climate is different from weather, in that weather only describes the short-term conditions of these variables in a given region. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) defines climate change as, changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. A region's climate is generated by the climate system, which has five components: atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere.