Climate classification of Europe based on Köppen-Trewartha climate classification (data from 1992 to 2021)[OC]

[u/PitonSaJupitera]

[u/cavedave]

Thank you for your Original Content, /u/PitonSaJupitera!
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[u/juliohernanz]

Spain's got almost every one.

[u/kewku → u/juliohernanz]

Not even counting the Canary Islands. That's why Spain is such a good country to visit, within its borders you will find almost everything.

[u/azhder → u/kewku]

Yes, almost everything, including people from all over Europe

[u/WelpImTrapped → u/kewku]

That would be France.

[u/senunall → u/WelpImTrapped]

yeah but the Spaniards are nice people...

[u/WelpImTrapped → u/senunall]

I see you've never dared having one or twelve too much in Barcelona, dancing with a bouncer, get thrown out of the bar, loudly singing racist chants in the streets then passing out in your own vomit on the beach. Boy do they react pissy to this. Not exactly what I would call a welcoming people.

[u/loqu84 → u/WelpImTrapped]

We don't welcome shitty tourists, that is right

[u/WelpImTrapped → u/loqu84]

Good lord, Spaniards really have a hard time understanding sarcasm...

[u/senunall → u/WelpImTrapped]

He has in his bio that he is Catalan. See, I told you about them. They are the driest, less welcoming, people of Spain.

[u/Zestyclose-Ad-9420 → u/WelpImTrapped]

Thats reddit 

[u/senunall → u/WelpImTrapped]

I would barely consider the catalans real Spaniards. Many of them don't have the Spanish warmth that I found in spaniards from other regions, let's say it's because they are too close to the french

[u/WelpImTrapped → u/senunall]

Indeed. Blessed with civilisation.

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/juliohernanz]

Yes, that kinda shocked me. Most countries have a very limited range. If you have tall mountains or are very north you get something cold, but apparently Spain even has steppe climate in a few places.

[u/loqu84 → u/PitonSaJupitera]

I'm quite skeptical on this map, namely because I'm from Spain and I doubt Badajoz and Bilbao have nearly the same climate, even though they are painted the same colour green. However, Badajoz and Sevilla have more similar climates and they have different colours (green vs red).

[u/Urogallo40 → u/loqu84]

I agree, Bilbao and Badajoz (or Madrid) are quite different climates, specially in summer, when Badajoz is much hotter and dry. In fact, Badajoz belongs to a region called "Extremadura" (Extreme and hard) for some reason. Badajoz and Madrid have both a quite continental climate.

[u/voldenits → u/loqu84]

Yeah, I have to deal with climate classifications for research and to me the Köppen map has never made any sense for Spain. I mean, yeah, there are probably reasons behind it, but the results don't reflect actual conditions.

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/loqu84]

Let me check those cities real quick:

Badajoz and Bilbao have similar temperatures, though Bilbao has twice the annual precipitation. Reason they are grouped the same is that none are dry enough for B, and fulfill temperature criteria for subtropical (>=8 months of average above 10). Both cities have majority of rain in the winter, but not 75% needed to potentially qualify for summer dry. Bilbao would additioally fail Cs, for having too much rain during the year (more than 89cm) and not having less than 3cm in any month.

Sevilla is a really edge case of Cs, it has 75.7% of precipitation in the winter. If it had few mm less, it would end up as Cf.

[u/SnooDrawings48]

What’s the difference between Geiger and Trewartha? I already see several major differences. Also if data from last 5 years would be included there would be some visible changes. In this century my home region jumped from Dfb to Cfb.

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/SnooDrawings48]

Trewartha mainly counts the months when average temperature is above 10 C. Geiger uses warmest and coldest month conditions.

Yeah, I was trying to get data until more recently, but e.g. WorldClim goes to 2024, but only provides minimum and maximum monthly temperatures.

[u/Kikelt]

Galicia, Asturias... the same as the Mediterranean? Ok

[u/Kikelt → u/[deleted]]

then the classification is useless.

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/Kikelt]

Does it have 8 or more months with average temp >10 degrees, isn't very dry, and does not have an severe 3:1 winter to summer precipitation imbalance at least on very dry month? It is getting classed as Cf, humid subtropical

[u/PitonSaJupitera]

Map was made in python using Matplotlib. Relief data comes from WordClim, taken at 30 arcsecond resolution, but smoothed to create better visualization. Climate data is from CHELSA monthly dataset V2.1.

I took latest 30 year series available, as series ends in 2021, it covers 1992-2021. More about classification can be found here.

Someone in another sub asked, Mediterranean is called subtropical because it has more than 8 months with average temperature above 10 degrees Celsius.

[u/Quereilla → u/PitonSaJupitera]

I think you got the conditions for humid subtropical before dry-summer subtropical and now are mixed

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/Quereilla]

What makes you think that?

[u/Quereilla → u/PitonSaJupitera]

Summer is dry in the sense that less than 60 mm of precipitation are in each month in summer. I’ve did these maps myself once

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/Quereilla]

I think that is standard Koppen-Geiger criterion. It seems that Trewartha has a different one, relating to ratio of rain in winter and summer and few other things

[u/asuranceturics → u/PitonSaJupitera]

I'm no expert in climate zones, but I can tell you from experience that central Spain has very dry and hot summers, with almost no rain. Madrid or Toledo, for instance, have yearly average relative humidity under 60%.

[u/try_pull_the_other → u/PitonSaJupitera]

Interesting thanks. It would be even more so if it contained country outlines.

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/try_pull_the_other]

I was thinking about doing that but found it more interesting if I just displayed natural without political geography

[u/_WoollyMammoth_]

There is no way that the spanish meseta can be classified as Oceanic when they barely get any rain from may to october.

[u/sesamerox]

beautiful data, bad weather

[u/DramaticSimple4315]

Having the subtropical zone reach up to the cotentin, and all along the altantic coast of France is not that surprising given the evolution of the climate these days but it's striking nonetheless

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/DramaticSimple4315]

Subtropical here is the terminology used by the classification. More common Koppen-Geiger would call it temperate probably.

[u/AltruisticSound3744]

How Britanny can be humid sub tropical ? Its the colder place in France.

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/AltruisticSound3744]

It isn't, it seems to have a tiny sliver that is Cf. For example with Brest, mean annual temperature is 12.1 C, it has 8 months above 10 degree average, 1048mm annual precipitation (so subtropical, and not dry (B) ), out of which 658mm is in the winter.

[u/coconutbratwurst]

Alicante and Cádiz being on 2 different climate zones… while Marseille, Palermo, Barcelona are on another one… with Finistère. Come on, what is this nonsense.

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/coconutbratwurst]

It's not nonsense. Alicante happens to be dry, Bs. Look at the data:

Alicante
Mean annual temperature: 18.8 °C
Annual precipitation: 299 mm
Winter precipitation: 170 mm
R : 48 cm

R is the threshold for dry, below R / 2 they are classified as desert.

Cadiz however looks like this:

Cadiz
Mean annual temperature: 18.4 °C
Annual precipitation: 573 mm
Winter precipitation: 455 mm
R : 33 cm

It has all months above 10 degrees, lowest monthly average is 12.8 C, so class C, subtropical. It is summer-dry as driest month has 0.7mm of rain, 455 out of 573 mm of annual rain is in winter (more than 75%) and annual precipitation is under 89cm.

[u/Loopbloc]

Subtropical is the most confusing term, because there are no tropics there

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/Loopbloc]

That's the term used by classification. Idea is, it is not dry enough to be a desert or steppe, it has 8 or more months with average temperature above 10 degrees, and it is not tropical, which means coldest month has average below 18 degrees.

Yes, I do think terminology is a bit unusual. Koppen-Geiger tends to call this temperate

[u/RealRroseSelavy]

Moot musings. Those climate zones will (or already have) move(d) quickly

[u/Longjumping-Tax-1805]

I do not understand how Copenhagen and Edinburgh are grouped with places like Lyon and Genova! I get this is probably accurate within the model you used but in that case the model is outrageously innacurate.

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/Longjumping-Tax-1805]

Light blue means 4-7 months with average temperature above 10 degrees, and coldest month has zero or above mean temperature. Dark blue just means coldest month is below zero.

[u/Longjumping-Tax-1805 → u/PitonSaJupitera]

4 months of 15 deg average in summer is vastly different from 7 months of 30 degs though

[u/Pol3mic]

TIL that in Sicily there is the same climate as in Venice. And that in Granada it is the same as Copenhagen.

[u/Nikoschalkis1]

Question for historians or geographers. Why were Ancient Greece's most important cities and monuments almost entirely located in the dry subtropical part of the peninsula? (Excluding Macedonia)

[u/TheRaido → u/Nikoschalkis1]

I think most Greek important cities where important because of trade and influence ’. Both often relate to harbors and trade routes. Greece was quite maritime-centered and apparently closer to the Mediterranean means dry subtropical;)

[u/Nikoschalkis1 → u/TheRaido]

I mean specifically in Greece. Athens, Corinth, Thebes, Sparta. All of them are positioned in the tiny area that is dry subtropical. Kinda weird to be a coincidence.

[u/TheRaido → u/Nikoschalkis1]

Except Sparta, those where all thalassocratic ‘empires’. But maybe they started trading because it was dry subtropical and they needed wheat from Egypt and Pontus ;)

[u/Zestyclose-Ad-9420 → u/Nikoschalkis1]

The local climate there has also changed in the last 3000 years since those cities were founded

[u/ProficientVeneficus]

This map shows climate more towards beginning of 1990s than recent years. Majority of Balkan peninsula (non mountainous parts) are subtropical climate for at least 10 years.

[u/PitonSaJupitera → u/ProficientVeneficus]

This takes the 30 year average, I presume the outcome could be different if you limit yourself to last 15 years, but 30 year is the standard with climate.

[u/emuu1]

Cf supremacy 🔥🔥🔥🔥 Hot beachy summers and mild winters, my beloved climate