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Climate zones are regions of the world defined by key parameters such as temperature and rainfall. The Köppen climate classification system is widely used, dividing the world into tropical, dry, moderate, continental, and polar zones. Identifying climate zones is important for agriculture and understanding historical climate change. Examples of climate zones include rainforests in South America and polar climates in Antarctica.
A climate zone is a region of the world where the climate can be defined using a few key parameters. There are several ways to classify the world’s climatic zones and a large assortment of uses for this information. Gardeners, for example, rely on them to know what plants they can grow, while biologists use area data to learn more about the animals and plants they study.
One of the most widely used systems is the Köppen climate classification, developed at the beginning of the 20th century by a German researcher. Köppen divides the world’s climate into tropical, dry, moderate or temperate, continental and polar climate zones. Within each division, there are a number of subdivisions, such as dry arid and dry semiarid. Some people divide the world more broadly into polar zones near the poles, followed by temperate zones, which meet a tropical zone at the equator. This division system is a bit of an oversimplification, however, and overlooks the great diversity within these large areas.
A set of data can be used to calculate a climate zone. Average temperatures, including average highs and lows, can be very helpful, along with average rainfall. Considerations such as weather patterns, wind and nearby climates may also be taken into consideration. This allows zones to be divided between things like tropical wet, with high humidity, wet weather year-round, and tropical wet and dry, which has wet and dry seasons.
Being able to identify a climatic region can be very important. Some climates are more hospitable to agriculture, for example, while others may be home to unique plant and animal species that can’t thrive elsewhere. Modern zone identification can also provide insight into the changing climate of the world, providing data that can be used to analyze ancient evidence, which can in turn be used to reconstruct the planet’s historical climate.
Some examples of tropical climates in the Köppen system include the rainforests of South America, the island of Hawaii, and the savannah of India. Dry climates are found in Egypt, the lowlands of Spain and Australia, while temperate climates are distributed in regions such as the west coast of the United States, the Mediterranean coast and South Africa. Continental climates are found in places such as China, Russia and central Canada, while polar climates are found in Antarctica, northern Russia and northern Canada.
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