Post for 20 Feb lesson: The Climograph (Victoria Lim)

Today’s lesson was a revisit on climographs. From the previous lesson, we assembled into our groups to work on various climographs and presented our answers.
We went through again, how to describe a climograph. Most importantly, we have 2 main areas to cover, how warm a place is and how wet.

For both areas, we have to mention the magnitude, which includes the highs and the lows, as well as the distribution – the range. I learnt that apart from merely plucking numbers from the climograph, and trying to impress with our knowledge of statistics, we must, most importantly, interpret the data. The description is what is the core of the answer is, and it helps to use a variety of vocabulary to describe them. From scorching temperatures to freezing colds, intense rainfalls, to droughts. Additionally, we must be able to conclude from all these information, the general pattern of the climograph, thus giving us a good idea of the climate in that region.

The general pattern of a climograph can tell us many things, for example if the area experiences seasons and from which we can approximately infer the location of the area if we have to. In general, I noticed that climographs of regions in the northern hemisphere generally came in the shape of an ‘n’ (the temperature part at least), while countries in the south such as Santiago and McMurdo Station had climographs in a ‘U’.

This is because the northern hemisphere such as US and Russia experiences winter in the Jan/Dec period, with summer in mid-year, hence temperatures follow the n shape with approximately the highest temperatures in Jun. On the other hand, temperatures in the southern hemisphere experience the seasons in the opposite pattern as the north, having temperatures dipping lowest in winters in mid-year, hence giving rise to the U shape. Personally, I find this rather useful as it makes sense and indeed does help me recognise the general patterns. To add on, equatorial countries usually have rather stable temperatures, so their climographs will be rather flat, so called.

Something else which was brought up in class was that in certain countries, the pattern of rainfall followed the trend of temperatures. I’m guessing this is due to higher temperatures resulting in more evaporation leading to higher rainfall. But again, I suppose this does depend on many other factors such as the winds as well as location, so this trend might not hold true all countries.

One last thing I learnt from class today was to be careful not to mention things that cannot be explicitly inferred from the climograph. For example wind patterns cannot be seen from the average climograph and mentioning it in one’s answer will be almost suicidal. So, as the rule of the thumb, just work on whatever’s given in the question.


I guess that’s all :)

Victoria Lim