The Köppen–Geiger climate classification made simpler (I hope so)

[Charerg]

I guess it could be Cfc as well, doesn't look brown enough to be Dwb, at least not to my eyes. Any chance you'd share your map with us Antillles? It's always a joy to take a look at how the climate turned out after all that work of going through this tutorial.

Anyway, good to see that the thread is still alive and people are using the tutorial!

[antillies]

Any chance you'd share your map with us Antillles? It's always a joy to take a look at how the climate turned out after all that work of going through this tutorial.

You're sweet to encourage me, Charerg. I'll share but I still have a long way to go in terms of producing something's that accurate.

I'm attaching the latest output below. It's only a single continent at the moment and it's more of a proof of concept to see how the climates would fall with regards to latitude and general land shape. I do not have an elevation map at the moment and, for this pass, just assumed everything was relatively the same height. I apologize for its rather unformed appearance.

[Azélor]

I find it strange that the Db climates are located north of the Dc ones unless they are
1- located very far apart (for example Scandinavia is warmer than Siberia)
2- located at higher altitude

Also, the transition should be more like Db Dc or Cc and then tundra

So the color we were wondering about is clearly Cfb. But, as I explained a couple of pages ago, it's also Cfc. The difference between the two is not the monthly temperatures of July/January but the length of either winter or summer, I don't remember. To differentiate them, we would need to make more temperature maps and it would be a waste of time IMHO since Cc climates are uncommon. Actually, there is one temperature combination unique to Cc climates IIRC : 10-18 degrees all year long. But since the Cc climates tend to be located at high latitudes on Earth the difference of temperature between the seasons rarely allow this combination to occur.

To continue, there should be a transition between Cb and Dc. It's usually Db.

I am not sure that Dsa should cover that a large area, unless they are mostly located at higher altitude. It's located at the same latitude as the other Mediterranean climates but they have cooler winters, this is usually because of the altitude. but maybe it could be because of the continentality, I'm not sure.

W and S climates should not tough each other but they may be close if there is a mountains range. That could explain the difference in precipitations.

Your Dwc climate look way off the track. Are there mountains around?

Lastly, you need a transition. There is an area that turn from desert to Cfb but you need to put a steppe there. All the way to the Csa, Csb

[Charerg]

Ok, I'll leave the more detailed feedback to Azelor, but here's a theoretical "box continent" that may be helpful:



It shows the most common climate types (as well as approximately where they usually appear), as well as what the transitions from one climate type to the next generally look like. Basically, if your continent is just a "flat slab" and heights are not taken into consideration, the climates should fit the "box model" (approximately).

@Azelor:
Btw, I did the "box continent" fairly quickly, so if there are any obvious errors (in terms of latitude where a climate type appears), feel free to point those out.


Edit:

@Antilles:
Regarding your climate map, I agree with Azelor: if the center of the continent (the brown area) is Dsb and Dsa, there's definitely something wrong, as those climate types generally only occur on a few mountains on Earth. Basically almost all "D climates" should be Df, except in the eastern coast of large Asia-like continents, where Dw would appear (in the interior, the coasts should be Df).

Ds climates should only appear in mountainous areas, on the western coasts (on Earth, Ds appears in the Rocky Mountains, Caucasus, Pamir and the Hindu Kush).

[antillies]

Thank you guys for your feedback! Like I said, it was just a first try concept. I'm going to reapproach the temperature and precipitation maps and see if I can get something better.

@Azelor: As I told Charerg, I didn't include any height considerations this time around because I was just curious how the climates would fall with no mountains. But I'm glad to know it is Cfb. Now that I have a general idea of how the process works, I'm going to try again and see if I can get something that is not so strange, haha. Thanks.

[Azélor]

@Chareng: The climate transition would vary depending whether it's a large or a small continent.

A... (something), hot steppe, hot desert, possibly some more desert, then steppe (usually the cold one depending on the latitude) , the Csa and so forth.

A clarification on Dsa and Dsb: If you want to make them more common, you would only have to lower the average temperature of the planet by a few degrees. Making so would lower the temperatures of Southern Europe during winter just enough so the average are below zero in winter. The the Csa would become Dsa or Dsb, I suppose unless the change of temperature brings other changes to precipitations.

[Charerg]

@Azelor:
It's intended to be a "mid size" continent, with all those steppes and desert appearing in the interior. Essentially bit of a guideline that will hopefully be useful.


Re: Ds climates

Yeah, if you vary the climate just a little from "present day Earth" the changes in climate types can be pretty massive. Think about the Sahara, for example: the place was largely savannah no more than just 7000 years ago (see Neolithic Subpluvial)! So in that sense it's entirely possible that your world could have a different "climate pattern" than Earth, but keep in mind that those kind of planetwide temperature changes and such have global effects.

For example, a colder planet is also a drier planet, so if you lower the global temperatures, you'd have to take that into account (deserts and steppes would be more extensive).

[acrosome]

I think it would be very interesting to see this method applied to a terraformed Mars. I had always sort of wondered how climate would shake out with one large northern ocean and the immense southern highlands. With, say, a sea level just high enough to flood Marineris. I'm sort of guessing an enormous southern BWk running directly into tundra.

I'm still slowly working on my terraformed Venus, which is a bit more of a challenge in some ways but then again more Earth-like than Mars in others...

[Charerg]

I think it would be very interesting to see this method applied to a terraformed Mars. I had always sort of wondered how climate would shake out with one large northern ocean and the immense southern highlands. With, say, a sea level just high enough to flood Marineris. I'm sort of guessing an enormous southern BWk running directly into tundra.

I'm still slowly working on my terraformed Venus, which is a bit more of a challenge in some ways but then again more Earth-like than Mars in others...

I agree it could be interesting, but I'm not sure if this method can be applied to Mars...because it's a much smaller planet, and I think it would have (has?) a different number of cells in it's atmospheric circulation.

If this site is accurate, Mars would have just one atmospheric cell (transporting air from the equator towards the pole). So, basically the equator and the area between the equator and the ocean would receive rain.

[acrosome]

Ah, but here's the really neat thing: no one really knows what determines the number of Hadley cells, so you can make up anything you like. Certainly rotational period matters... and probably size... but also maybe atmospheric density, so once it's terraformed it might have more Earthlike cells. Venus OTOH has a very dense atmosphere but barely rotates at all, so it also only has one Hadley cell per hemisphere.

I'm a bit of a Mars fanboi...

Honestly though, yes, you're probably correct that even a thicker atmosphere wouldn't give tiny Mars more cells. So this might be a nice one-shot project for someone who knows what drives climate and could puzzle it all out. *cough-Azelor* At least figuring out currents in The Ocean wouldn't be comparatively complex.

Hell, maybe someday I'll turn my hand to it. Someone would have to port Azelor's Photoshop script to GIMP first, though. I looked into getting Photoshop but they've gone to a subscription cloud-based model, which I find abhorrent. I mean, $20/month?!? Seriously?