Tropical moist climates (A): They have high precipitation and an average temperature of 18 0C. Tropical rainforest climate (Af), occur within 5-100 latitudes, average precipitation of 60 mm, temperature may up up to 250C, found in South and Central America. Tropical monsoon climate (Am) has rainfall less than 60 mm during the driest month e.g. South America. Tropical wet and dry or savanna (Aw) has pronounced dry and seasons with rainfall less than 60mm and less than 1125 annually e.g. Mumbai, India and Bangkok, Thailand.
Dry climates (B): Experience precipitation less than the potential evapotranspiration. If the annual precipitation is less than 50% the potential evapotranspiration then the climate is desert climate (BW) and 50%-100% is classified as steppe Climate (BS). Third letter k and h, denote average annual temperature above 180C and below 180 respectively. Examples, BWk (Isfahan, Iran) and BSk (Tehran, Iran)
Moist Mid-latitude with Mild winters(C): has warm summer and mild winter temperatures. Coldest month has temperature average between 180 to-30 C. Dry-Summer subtropical (Csa/Csb) occur western side of the continent between 30-400 latitudes with hot-dry summers, example, Beirut, Lebanon. Humid Subtropical (Cfa and Cwa) occurs in the eastern coast of continents between 200-30 0 latitudes. Have warm-wet summers an dry winters e.g. Sao Paulo, Brazil. Maritime temperate climate (Cfb, Cc,Cwc) found 45-550 latitudes dominated by polar fronts all year, e.g. in Hamburg, Germany.
Moist Mid-latitude with cold winters (D) Warmest month has an average of 100C while the coldest has -30C. Ds indicate dry summer while Dw indicates dry winters. Df indicate significant precipitation in all seasons. Example, Ds Mus , Turkey; Df Helsinki, Finland; Dw Pyongyang, North Korea.
Polar climates (E) with both cold winters and summers; Tundra climates (ET) warmest month with an average temperature of between 0-100C. E.g. Mount Fuji, Japan. Ice cap climate (EF) with average temperatures below 00 C, dominant in Antarctica.
Work cited
Michael Pidwirny. Köppen Climate Classification System. The Encyclopedia of the Earth, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/162263/ on 6-04-2014.
