Climatology and Environment

Abstract

A significant share in the solution of modern problems of environment in Czechoslovakia have both meteorology (as a discipline of physical sciences) and climatology (as a discipline of geographical sciences). According to definition the atmospheric pollution is to be understood as an element of the weather. Similarly, in the study of climate, it is necessary to take into consideration even the effects of man's activities on weather and climate. But the climatological problems of air pollution are only one side of applied climatology. In areas with a lower concentration of industry (such as districts of Břeclav and Jihlava) the problems of the effects of weather and climate on man and his economic activities are much more immediate. In agriculture it is not only the influence on yields but climatic conditions play an important role even in the use of mechanization etc. It appears that there are no sufficient data available in Czechoslovakia as to the main laws governing the distribution in space and time of dangerous weather phenomena (e. g. in the case of thunderstorms not only their frequency, but direction and velocity in the various parts of the country, the density of damage caused by lightnings too - for planning of high-voltage lines etc.). A similar situation can be registered even in the case of hailstorms, late frosts, ice accretion etc. It would be necessary to try to elaborate a regionalization of similar phenomena with respect to physical and geographical points of view. In the compilation of mesoclimatic maps it will be necessary to try to pass over from teoretical methods to methods of remote-sensing. As late as after the solution of the basic methodical approach to the elaboration of partial phenomena the synthesis can be started such as of effects of weather and climate on economic activities and, vice versa, effects of economic activities of man on weather and climate. The prognoses of environment must be based not only on trends of atmospheric pollution but also on the dynamics of climatic oscillations.