New climatic classification of Nepal

Although it is evident that Nepal has an extremely wide range of climates within a short latitudinal distance, there is a lack of comprehensive research in this field. The climatic zoning in a topographically complex country like Nepal has important implications for the selection of scientific station network design and climate model verification, as well as for studies examining the effects of climate change in terms of shifting climatic boundaries and vegetation in highly sensitive environments. This study presents a new high-resolution climate map of Nepal on the basis of long-term (1981–2010) monthly precipitation data for 240 stations and mean air temperature data for 74 stations, using original and modified Köppen–Geiger climate classification systems. Climatic variables used in Köppen–Geiger system were calculated (i) at each station and (ii) interpolated to 1-km spatial resolution using kriging which accounted for latitude, longitude, and elevation. The original Köppen–Geiger scheme could not identify all five types of climate (including tropical) observed in Nepal. Hence, the original scheme was slightly modified by changing the boundary of coldest month mean air temperature value from 18 °C to 14.5 °C in order to delineate the realistic climatic condition of Nepal. With this modification, all five types of climate (including tropical) were identified. The most common dominant type of climate for Nepal is temperate with dry winter and hot summer (Cwa).

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