Technical note: Towards a continuous classification of climate using bivariate colour mapping

Abstract

Climate is often defined in terms of discrete classes. Here I use bivariate colour mapping to show that the global distribution of Köppen-Geiger climate classes can largely be reproduced by combining the simple means of two key states of the climate system (i.e. air temperature and relative humidity). This allows for a classification that is not only continuous in space, but can be applied at and transferred between timescales ranging from days to decades. © 2011 Author(s).