ABSTRACT
The interrelationship between climate and society has been an enduring theme of geography throughout the history of the discipline. Early studies focused on how climate influenced economy, culture and society and how communities have been able to overcome or adapt to aspects of climate – and particularly its variability and unreliability. The term climatic variability refers to the changeability of climate. Strictly speaking, the term can refer to the year-to-year variability of an essentially stable climate as well as to longer-term climatic fluctuations and change that entail statistically significant differences in climatic means, climatic extremes and year-to-year variability. The human impacts of climatic change and variability can be indirect as well as direct. Human response systems to climate, climatic variability and climatic change have varied greatly in nature and complexity through time, with particularly profound changes with the growing acceptance of human-induced global warming and the needs both to plan for it and combat it.
