What is climate?
Climate is a sort of huge 'machine'. What's called 'weather' is just a small bit of this machine which you and I notice: you know, a tornado, a blizzard, a hurricane, very hot weather or very cold weather. And I bet you know what drives this machine, don't you? Yes, it's the sun. Without the sun, there would be no climate, no weather, no people, no penguins, no life.

The climate 'machine'

The sun warms the air and hot air rises bringing with it moisture from the sea. As the moist air rises, it expands. This makes it cooler and so any moisture in the air condenses to make clouds.
And, as you know, clouds mean rain.

The sun also warms the seas and oceans which makes huge currents of water -- a little like winds, but inside the ocean. One of these huge currents is called the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic Ocean. This keeps countries in Northern Europe warm even though they are nearer the North Pole than the equator. Another huge current -- this time a cold current -- affects Chile and Peru in South America. This is called the Humboldt current. It brings lots of food for fish to eat which once made the Peruvian fishing industry the biggest in the world. It also means that many seabirds can live there... including penguins. All these things -- the oceans, the atmosphere, the hot and the cold parts of the planet, deserts, rainforests -- all depend upon climate and upon the sun.

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