Lesson video

Hi, geographers, my name is Ms. Hoggett and I'm really excited you've chosen to learn some geography with me today.

If you try your best, I'm sure you're going to be absolutely fantastic.

Don't worry if you've not studied this topic before.

I'm here to help you every step of the way.

So our title for today's lesson is The UK's Climate and it sits within the unit: Weather and Climate: How do they vary? Our outcome for today's lesson is to understand the reason why the climate of the UK varies.

We have a number of keywords that are going to help us with today's lesson: temperate maritime, precipitation, altitude, and latitude.

Temperate maritime is a climate with moderate rainfall, mild to warm summers and cool to cold winters.

Precipitation is water that falls from the sky as rain, snow, hail, or sleet.

Altitude is height above sea level or ground level, and latitude are imaginary lines on Earth showing the position north or south of the Equator and it's measured in degrees.

So those keywords are gonna help us get through today's lesson.

We have two learning cycles today.

The first one: What is the UK's climate? and the second: Why is the UK's weather so changeable? And we're going to start with the first one: What is the UK's climate? So the UK has a temperate maritime climate.

This means that average temperatures are mild, so without extremes, and there's precipitation all year round.

On the screen you can see a climate graph of Brighton.

A climate graph is a graph that shows two bits of data, temperature in degrees Celsius and precipitation in millimetres.

Temperature is shown looking at the red line and precipitation is shown using the blue bars.

If we have a look at this climate graph, we can see that every month, the temperature and the amount of precipitation changes.

Lucas has looked at this graph and he says, "I can see that on the climate graph, there are blue bars every month for precipitation, and average temperatures are between five and 20 degrees Celsius all year round." So we can see that there is changes with both temperature and precipitation, but we know that rain falls every single month.

What I'd like you to do now is I'd like you to have a go at helping Sam improve Sofia's sentence using the correct key term.

Sofia has said, "The UK has a mild and wet climate." But Sam knows that Sam can do better.

So what key word does Sam need to put into their sentence in order to improve on what Sofia has said? Pause the video and have a go at this knowledge check.

Well done if you said temperate maritime.

Sam's correct by saying the UK has a temperate maritime climate.

In the UK we experience different seasons, and this is because of the way that the Earth is tilted on its axis.

In the summer, the northern hemisphere, which is where the UK is, is pointed towards the sun.

This makes our temperatures warmer and our days much longer.

In the winter, the northern hemisphere is pointed away from the sun and this makes our days shorter and the temperatures much colder.

Brighton's located about 47 miles south of London, and therefore it's in the south-east of England.

And as we see on this climate graph, the average temperature is much warmer in the summer and less rain falls.

We can see it's sat just above 15, so we'd say it's approximately 17 degrees Celsius in July.

This changes as we go into a different season into the winter because Brighton experiences a colder, wetter climate with occasional snow, as we can see on the climate graph.

We can see that the blue bars are much higher and therefore it must be that there's higher levels of precipitation.

But likewise, the red line is at its lowest points in January, February and December, and that tells us it's much colder.

We can see it's just sitting above five degrees Celsius, which is quite chilly.

So we do experience a seasonal pattern in places in the UK as well.

It's not just Brighton that experiences these seasonal patterns though, because climate actually varies across the whole of the UK.

If we take a look at these two choropleth maps on the screen, we can see differences in the UK's climate.

Now a choropleth map is a map that uses colour to help us show different values.

The darker the colour, the higher the value and the lighter the colour, the lower the value.

Let's take a look at the rain format on the left hand side of this map.

We can see that the darkest shade of blue there is in the north west of Scotland.

Now that tells me that in January, on average they receive about 500 millimetres of rainfall every single year.

That's quite a lot.

Where I am, located in the south-east of the UK, and just outside of London, actually it's much less than that, at about 100 millimetres of rainfall every January.

We can also do the same looking at the temperature map because actually we can see the darkest colour this time is located in the south east.

So that tells us that this is the warmest region at over 18 degrees Celsius on average in June.

So we can see that the climate varies across the whole of the UK.

Now we're going to take a look at the rainfall patterns in a little bit more detail.

When we are looking at these maps, we can consider the amount of precipitation, which refers to any type of moisture that falls from the sky.

This could be rain, snow, heat, hail, sleet, for example.

And what we can see on that map, again, just as a reminder, is that the north and west of the UK generally experiences most precipitation.

The second map on this screen is a relief map and a relief map shows us the height of the land.

The green colours on the key show us that we are zero metres in height and the dark yellow colours show us it's 1000 metres in height.

Now what we can do as geographers is we can make comparisons between two different maps and look for similarities and differences.

Now the first similarity I notice is that in the north and west we can see the land is much higher.

Same applies a bit further south.

In Wales we can see that we have high land and therefore high amounts of precipitation.

Again, in the south west we can see that we've got high land and high amounts of precipitation.

When we are referring to the height of the land and we're talking about how high something is above sea level, we could also refer to it as altitude.

So the areas that are highest above sea level have the highest altitude.

You're doing really well so far, everybody.

Well done.

Now the reason why rainfall happens in places when there is higher land is because air is forced to rise over these land forms. You can see from this diagram that where the air is rising, a cloud has started to form.

So as air rises, it cools down and it forms clouds.

This is something that we call relief rainfall.

There's three different types of rainfall which we'll come onto another time, but this is called relief rainfall.

Now the other part of the UK's climate that's super important is the temperature.

Now when we're looking at temperature, we can refer to the east and west bands that are north and south of the Equator and they are lines of latitude.

And they're really important when we're thinking about temperature, because if we think about the pattern that we can see on this map, we can see that in the south, it's much warmer than it is in the north.

So that band moving further away from the Equator, it seems to be getting colder.

We need to think about why that might be.

We can explain this by thinking about if we were to shine a torch at a bit of paper.

If you were to do that, you'd notice that directly under the torch, the light would be really intense and bright, whereas the further away from that direct point, the light is going to fade out.

The same is happening with energy from the sun at the Equator because it's really intense at the Equator and we've got the most concentrated energy, but further away from the Equator, it reduces in intensity.

So when we are thinking about where the UK is located, we know that the south of the UK is closer to the Equator than the north of the UK and that starts to explain those temperature patterns that we can see.

I'd like you to pause the video and explain that to your partner.

Why is southern England warmer than northern England and Scotland? Well done for giving that a good go.

Fantastic work, geographers.

So temperature is determined by the angle at which the sun shines with the angle increasing with latitude.

This is what I've just explained.

So you can see, at higher latitudes, the sun's rays are spread out over a larger area, which makes it colder, whereas at the Equator, the sun's rays are spread over a smaller area, making it so much warmer.

So that is where we can use our torch analogy to hopefully make sense of that a little bit more, but well done for all the hard work you're doing so far.

Okay, folks, we are now going to have a knowledge check.

So true or false? Places in the UK have the same climate month by month across the year.

Pause the video now and have a go at answering that question.

Well done if you said false, because in the UK, both temperature and precipitation vary by season, so we know that that is false.

Now everything that we've discussed so far is gonna help us recognise that there are different patterns of rainfall and temperature across the UK.

This helps us to understand the UK's climate.

So if we take a look at these two maps very quickly, we can see that the north west of the UK has a mild winter and cool summer, and the north east of the UK has cold winters and cool summers.

Now it's slightly different if we go to the south west and south east because the south west of the UK has mild winters and warm summers and the south east of the UK has cold winters and warm summers.

Now there are a number of different patterns that are clear between these four different regions.

I'd like you to pause the video and have a think about what different patterns you can see.

Well done, geographers.

Did you notice the east to west contrast? So let's take a look.

The west of the UK has mild winters.

We can see that highlighted in purple.

If we then look at the east of the UK, we can see that they have cold winters in both the north and the south.

So there's that variation between how cold our winters are between the north west, south west and then the north east and south east.

But there's also a north to south contrast because we can see that the summers in the north are cooler, whereas in the south they are much warmer, and that links in to those lines of latitude.

What I'd like you to do now is I'd like you to practise what you've learned so far and complete the boxes to show how the climate varies around the UK.

The first one, I've done for you.

So it says the north west of the UK has mild winters and cool summers, and I'd like you to fill in the final boxes.

That's part one.

There's also another part to this practise task because I'd like you to describe how latitude and altitude influence the climate within the UK, and you can complete the sentences.

So latitude influences climate in the UK because.

And altitude influences climate in the UK because.

Pause the video now and have a go at completing those two tasks.

Well done for giving that a really good go, geographers.

Let's check your answers.

So the north west of the UK has mild winters and cool summers.

The south west of the UK has mild winters and warm summers.

The north east of the UK has cold winters and cool summers, and the south east of the UK has cold winters and warm summers.

Well done if you've got those all spot on.

And then part two, describe how latitude and altitude influence the climate within the UK.

Your answer might include that latitude influences climate in the UK because the further north, the colder the temperature is as the higher the latitude, the less focus the solar energy from the sun is on the land.

And altitude influences climate in the UK because where land is higher, there tends to be higher levels of precipitation.

This is mainly evident in the west of the UK.

Fantastic job, geographers.

We're now at the end of learning cycle one and we're ready to move on to learning cycle two: Why is the UK's weather so changeable? So why is the UK's weather so changeable? Lucas says, "Sometimes it feels like we experience all four seasons in one day." Only yesterday did I leave the house and it was raining, for it then to be sunny in the afternoon, windy when I was walking the dog and it then proceeded to get all icy as I was going to bed.

So it does feel like it changes really frequently.

Now this is because of something called air masses and they have a big impact on the UK's weather.

Air masses are large pockets of air that bring different types of weather to the UK.

They all have different names, but their characteristics are determined by where they come from, which makes them quite easy to remember.

So we have tropical air masses, which are warm, arctic air masses, which are cold, but then we have polar air masses which are even colder and they're the coldest ones we have.

But then we also have continental air masses, which are dry and maritime air masses, which are wet.

And what we often do is we will match one that's about temperature with one that's to do with how wet or how dry it is.

So you might have tropical continental or polar maritime, for example.

Let's check you've understood that.

So I'd like you to match up the air mass to its key characteristic.

So is tropical cold? Is it dry? Is it warm? Pause the video and have a go at answering that practise task.

Well done for giving that a really good go, geographers.

And let's check your answers.

So tropical is warm, arctic is cold, but polar is coldest, continental is dry and maritime is wet.

Fantastic work.

Well done.

So this map on the screen shows us the different air masses and where they've come from.

And we can see that we've matched them up in pairs to do with temperature and then how wet or dry they are.

So for example, the Arctic Maritime comes from the north and travels over water.

So therefore because it comes from the Arctic, it brings the coldest temperatures and because it comes over water, it brings wettest or snowiest weather.

So we can work out what type of weather those air masses are likely to bring just by thinking about the name of them.

Pause the video now and have a think.

What do you think the tropical continental air mass might bring? What did you think? So tropical is hot and continental means it's come over land.

So if you said that you think it's going to be hot and dry, you'd be absolutely spot on.

The tropical continental air mass actually comes from North Africa, so we can also see how it brings that hot weather.

But as we said, it does bring dry weather.

So well done for giving that a go.

Let's check your understanding one more time.

So which of the following air masses bring hot and dry weather to the UK? Is it A: polar continental, B: tropical continental, C: polar maritime, or D tropical maritime? Pause the video and have a go at answering that question.

Well done if you said tropical continental.

We know hot and dry weather must be tropical and it must be continental.

Good work, geographers.

Now because we have so many different air masses that we just saw on that diagram, all meeting over the UK, we often refer to the UK as a roundabout because lots of different air masses are all swirling together here.

Now air masses can't mix and therefore they have to compete with each other, which is what makes our weather so changeable.

When these air masses collide, sometimes there can be quite extreme weather.

And for example in 2018, the UK experienced really intense snowfall because two of those air masses met.

Now when that happens, that can cause lots of chaos.

And for example, in 2018, lots of flights were cancelled, people couldn't travel around, and that was because we weren't prepared for that weather.

So what I would like you to do now is I'd like you to practise what we've learned in our second learning cycle.

So I'd firstly like you to label the arrows showing the name of the air masses affecting the UK's climate.

I would then like you to describe what weather we would expect each air mass to bring in the table below.

I've done the first one for you.

So polar maritime is the coldest, wettest weather.

Pause the video and have a go at completing that practise task.

Well done for giving that a really good go, geographers.

I'm sure you've done fantastic, but let's take a moment just to check our answers.

So the Arctic maritime is coming from the north and then we have the polar maritime and the polar continental.

And then right in the south, we have the tropical maritime and the tropical continental.

Well done for giving that a really good go.

If we take a look at our table, we should have that polar continental is the coldest, driest weather.

Arctic maritime is cold, wet weather, tropical maritime is hot, wet weather and tropical continental is hot, dry weather.

Give yourself a pat on the back if you've got those all correct, I'm sure you did.

We've come to the end of learning cycle two then, folks.

And I think you've done brilliantly today.

Well done for all of your hard work.

In summary, the UK has a temperate maritime climate.

It experiences mild temperatures with precipitation all year round.

The south of the UK is warmer than the north and the west of the UK is wetter than the east.

The east of the UK is warmer in summer, but colder in winter and factors affecting the UK's climate include: latitude, altitude, and different air masses.

Have a great rest of your day, everybody, and I will see you soon.