The Methodological Changes in Current Climate Studies

Abstract

This article defines and distinguish as the basic methodological approaches in the present Climatological studies the statistical approach, the synoptical approach, the dynamic approach and the systemic approach. With this scope, it evaluates its relative relevance in the period 1970-1985, based on the analysis of more than three thousand scientiphical articles. Moreover, it analyses the relationship between these approaches and the different thematic changes, and theirs spatial perspectives and their more frequent geographical spaces of analysis. The autor defends a concept of Climatology as a interdisciplinary field and recognizes as a more strategic questions the temporal dynamics of the Climate, associated with the introduction of the notion of climatic system, and the development of the remote sensing technics. Finally, she explains the methodological dynamics as regulated by the basic play of two opposite tensions: continuity and change.