Climate is taken to mean the average weather. The classical time period used by the World Meteorological Organization to determine the climate is 30 years. So the climate is the average weather over a given period of 30 years. Parameters such as temperature, rainfall and wind can be examined to determine key characteristics of the state of the climate at different periods in time, and to identify variation across time periods. The section of the Monitor labelled “Climate” is concerned with the socio-economic effects of a changing climate.