Geographers generally take a climatological approach to the study of the atmosphere.
Weather and climate are two commonly used terms which are sometimes not clearly understood. Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a particular point in time over a given region, while climate is a synthesis or generalisation of the weather observed over a longer time period. Implicit in these definitions is the notion that these terms refer to atmospheric conditions over an area rather than merely at a specific location. However, it is generally the case that point values and derived statistics obtained for individual observing stations are used to represent quite large areas. The siting of weather and climate stations is therefore quite critical.