Details Permalink to Details. Added to the Catalog 19 Aug. Available for SOS. Description Permalink to Description. These scientists learned that vegetation and climate are intricately linked. The vegetation that grows in a region is dependent on the temperature and precipitation there, which are two key factors of climate. Areas with more rainfall and higher temperatures contain more forests while regions with less rainfall tend to be deserts.
The system divides the world into five climate zones based on criteria, usually temperature, which allows for different vegetation growth. While most of the zones are organized based on the temperature of a region, Zone B focuses on the aridity of a region. The zones are as follows:. Zone B: arid or dry zone represented by red, pink, and orange colors on most maps.
Zone D: continental zone represented by purple, violet, and light blue colors on most maps. Zone E: polar zone represented by gray colors on most maps. Each zone is further subdivided based on temperature or dryness. Climate zones C and D are broken into categories based on when the dry seasons occur in the zones, as well as the coldness of the summer or the warmth of the winter.
Additionally, some modern revisions to the system include a sixth region, known as Zone H. This represents a highland climate located at mountainous elevations. At the time of writing, a recent revision to this map was published in The Koppen Climate Classification System divides the major five zones into sub-zones.
These are assigned a lowercase letter to distinguish specific seasonal characteristics of temperature and precipitation. A lowercase "f" designates zones that are moist year-round. In these zones there is no dry season, with precipitation usually every week or so. The lowercase "f" is usually assigned to zone A, C, and D climates. Lowercase "m" is used to designate rainforest climates. This sub-zone has a short dry season that is monsoon in character, but the rain is enough to create a forest that feeds on a nearly constant rainfall.
The lower case "m" sub-zone is assigned to A zone climates. The lowercase "s" stands for the places that have dry season in the summer. This letter applies to summer in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. In contrast, lower case "w" is used for localities that have a dry season in the winter. The letter is applied to winter in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
The Koppen Climate Classification System has been refined to account for subtler variations in climates. The first is Af, or tropical wet climate, where the climate is tropical with precipitation all year round. Monthly variations in temperature in these regions are less than of about 3 degree C.
The extremely high humidity and surface temperatures in these regions cause cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds to form early into the afternoons everyday, resulting in a high amount of precipitation. Second is tropical monsoon climate, designated as Am. In these regions, the annual precipitation is nearly similar to that of Af, but here most of the precipitation occurs within the 7 to 9 of the warmest months of the year. Less rainfall occurs in these regions in the rest of the year.
The third sub-division is Aw, or the tropical wet and dry climate, or the savanna climate. These climactic zones experience an extended dry season during the winter season. During the wet season, precipitation is usually less than 1, mm, and occurs mostly during the summer season.
Temperature is not as much of a factor in these climactic zones as precipitation, or rather the lack of it is in these climactic zones. In these climactic zones, evaporation and transpiration exceeds the total precipitation. These climactic regions extend 20 to 35 degrees latitude northwards and southwards from the equator and are present in large continental regions in the mid-latitudes or are encircled by mountainous regions.
There are four broad sub-divisions of this climactic zone. Areas falling under this climactic zone are habitats for xerophytic vegetation. The letters h and k are suffixed after BW to signify whether the dry arid zone is located in the sub-tropics or the mid-latitudes respectively. The second is BS, or dry semi-arid climate, also referred to as steppe climate.
Regions coming under dry semi-arid climate or BS receives more precipitation than the regions under the dry arid climate or BW, which is mainly due to mid-latitude cyclones or due to the inter-tropical convergence zone. The letters h and k are suffixed in a similar way to BW zones to define the location of the climactic zone in the sub-tropics or in the mid-latitudes respectively. In this climactic zone summers are usually warm and humid while winters are mild.
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