Climate and Climate change Questions: 1. Explain the basic concept of the Köppen

Question

Climate and Climate change Questions:

1. Explain the basic concept of the Köppen climate classification system.

2. What information is conveyed in a climograph?

3. Why are dry climates usually displaced toward the western sides of continents?  

4. Why are dry climates much more extensive in North Africa than in any other subtropical location?

5. What causes the relatively mild temperatures of marine west coast climates?

6. Although both cities are coastal, New York City has a continental climate while Seattle, Washington, has a maritime climate. Why?  

7. Why are polar climates so dry?

Explanation / Answer

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ANSWERS

1. K?ppen climate classification system classifies climates based on observable features such as temperature, precipitation and wind.

- Tropical Moist Climates: all months have average temperatures above 18° Celsius.

- Dry Climates: with deficient precipitation during most of the year.

- Moist Mid-latitude Climates with Mild Winters.

- Moist Mid-Latitude Climates with Cold Winters.

- Polar Climates: with extremely cold winters and summers.

2. Climograph is a plot of the temperature and precipitation in a particular region.Basically, climograph is the representation of a basic type of climate parameters. Both line and bar graphs combine and make the climograph. where bars represent the rainfall and lines represent the temperature.

3. Near the western and central portions of some continents, the subsidence associated with the subtropical high-pressure cells suppresses upward vertical motion of the atmosphere. Here high- altitude vertical temperature inversions often develop, further inhibiting the likelihood of updrafts and adiabatic cooling. Likewise, cool ocean currents can also serve to increase atmospheric stability in west coast locations.

4. The desert’s extensive development in this location is explained by the year-round presence of anticyclonic conditions and the remoteness from any upwind source of moisture. The adjacency of Eurasia makes Africa a continent without an eastern coast north of 10° north latitude, and so the climate extends from coast to coast in northern Africa.

5. Because marine west coast climates are in the windward location of their latitudes, there is an oceanic influence that ameliorates temperatures most of the time, with temperatures on a western coast in these latitudes decreased poleward at less than half the rate of what’s found on eastern coast. Prolonged heat waves are unknown, and low temperatures rarely persist.

6. While both cities are coastal, Seattle possesses a persistent maritime influence from the onshore flow of the westerlies of the relatively cool west coast ocean waters throughout the year. The air current makes an extraordinary climate considering the latitude.New York is influenced by western flow from the continent's interior. This city to colder air masses in the winter and warmer air masses in the summer, giving New York an overall higher annual temperature range.

7. There are two main reasons that polar climates are dry:-

- Cold air is not able to hold as much water vapour as warm air.

- Earth's polar regions are each dominated by high pressure. This means that air from higher in the troposphere is descending to the surface near the poles. The air is colder the higher we go (in the troposphere), so the air coming down to the surface is really dry.

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