Question

What are the thermal criteria for tropical, mild latitude, severe midlatitude, and polar climates, in the Koppen system?

Answer 1

The Koppen system uses capital letters (A,B,C,D,E,H) to designate climatic categories by latitude. Of the six categories, all but B are based upon purely temperature criteria:

A: Tropical climate ( Tropical Moist Climates: all months have average temperatures above 18 degrees Celsius)

B : Arid and semi-arid climate: Dry Climates: with deficient precipitation during most of the year

C  Mild midlatitude climate(Moist Mid-latitude Climates with Mild Winters, coldest month avg. temperature > -3 C)

D  Severe midlatitude climate(Moist Mid-Latitude Climates with Cold Winters, coldest month avg. temperature < -3 C)

E  Polar climate (with extremely cold winters and summers, cold year round, temperature of warmest month less than 10 °C)

H Highland: significant climatic changes in short horizontal distances due to altitudinal variations.