Glimpses home page • Climatology 101
Created by Dave Bryant, copyright 2002
By answering a few simple questions, a world-builder can get a little help defining the climate of a location or region -- presuming the world in question is pretty much Earth-like. The Climate Wizard uses the de facto standard for climatological classification, introduced by Wladimir Köppen and his student Rudolph Geiger in 1928 and modified by Glenn T. Trewartha in 1980.
Needless to say, the Wizard is very generalized, and is intended purely to lead the user in the right direction when consulting detailed references for more information. To that end, a climate description includes basic outlines of temperature ranges, annual precipitation, vegetation types, and real-world examples.
When speaking about temperatures or precipitation, it is important to note that any given area has an average value established over many years of study. When a climate description delimits a range of temperature or total precipitation, that variation is geographical rather than chronological; at a given location, the average will be a single figure falling within the specified range.
To start defining a climate, click the region's location on the world map below.
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