A new approach to the method of drawing the Gaussen-Walter climate diagram

Abstract

In traditional climate diagrams a fixed coefficient (α) between temperature and precipitation has been adopted. It has been shown, however, that such an approach does not correctly describe the conditions of the climatic balance in Poland for the entire growing season. In this paper, a different solution to this problem is proposed-the introduction of a variable coefficient for individual months. The analysis of patterns of climatic variables over the year supports the hypothesis that in order to estimate ETo only by means of mean air temperature (ETo = α·T), the coefficient α should be variable for the individual months of the vegetative period. The values of the coefficient were empirically determined for use in calculating daily and monthly ETo. The newly proposed coefficients α were different from those determined with the standard climate diagram (published by Walter, Lieth 1967). The introduction of the variable value α into the computational model markedly improved the quality of the estimation of ETo. The mean bias errors determined for the estimation of ETo on the basis of temperature and the changing value of α were considerably lower than for the estimation of ETo with a fixed value of α. This provides the possibility of a more accurate presentation of periods of both excess and shortage of precipitation.