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And talking about altitude, just yesterday the Argentine National Team (football/soccer) played against its Bolivian counterpart in the height of La Paz for the World Cup qualifying. You could see that, from time time, some Argentinian players went outside the field to breath in some oxygen from a spray can.
Whenever Bolivia plays at home there's a big fuss about the altitude for the away teams that visit, because it's a big ally that lets Bolivia win some games that they couldn't win otherwise. When they play away from home, on the other hand, Bolivia don't perform too well, usually.
And talking about altitude, just yesterday the Argentine National Team (football/soccer) played against its Bolivian counterpart in the height of La Paz for the World Cup qualifying. You could see that, from time time, some Argentinian players went outside the field to breath in some oxygen from a spray can.
Whenever Bolivia plays at home there's a big fuss about the altitude for the away teams that visit, because it's a big ally that lets Bolivia win some games that they couldn't win otherwise. When they play away from home, on the other hand, Bolivia don't perform too well, usually.
Sorry for the slight OT.
Messi was throwing up in the meantime!!
And those guys were grasping for air and using those things to breath in? It was a shocker to watch, those usually out of this world running players, barely being able to walk in that insane altitude with that lack of oxygen.
Strange thing is that Bolivia, even with all this advantage, it always seem to manage to always be among the worse 3 teams in Conmebol and almost never making it to the WC. Lol.
Definitely not subtropical. Not even close. As with the Californian Coast and NZ, I think most "Subtropical Highland" climates are mild enough that they're hard to define other than being far from polar. This is one of the few exceptions; it's so close to being a polar climate (albeit an unusually comfortable one year-round) that I'd consider it a subpolar climate.
Really, I'm not even sure whether palms could grow there despite the warm winters. If they could, they'd definitely have to be Chinese Windmill and/or Chilean Wine, both of which are known for being able to tolerate cool summers and unable to tolerate hot summers.
Indeed, I believe "Subtropical Highland" is a terrible misnomer. I can say the same about Cold-Summer and Warm-Summer "Mediterranean" and especially Continental "Mediterranean" climates. For me, the only real subtropical climates (excluding some arid and semiarid regions, but even then they'd be limited to year-round warm but not freeze-free places like Las Vegas or Tucson) are the Hot-Summer Mediterranean (like Sacramento, Madrid and Tunis) and Humid Subtropical zones (like Nashville, Buenos Aires, Sydney and Shanghai).
Definitely not subtropical. Not even close. As with the Californian Coast and NZ, I think most "Subtropical Highland" climates are mild enough that they're hard to define other than being far from polar. This is one of the few exceptions; it's so close to being a polar climate (albeit an unusually comfortable one year-round) that I'd consider it a subpolar climate.
Really, I'm not even sure whether palms could grow there despite the warm winters. If they could, they'd definitely have to be Chinese Windmill and/or Chilean Wine, both of which are known for being able to tolerate cool summers and unable to tolerate hot summers.
Indeed, I believe "Subtropical Highland" is a terrible misnomer. I can say the same about Cold-Summer and Warm-Summer "Mediterranean" and especially Continental "Mediterranean" climates. For me, the only real subtropical climates (excluding some arid and semiarid regions, but even then they'd be limited to year-round warm but not freeze-free places like Las Vegas or Tucson) are the Hot-Summer Mediterranean (like Sacramento, Madrid and Tunis) and Humid Subtropical zones (like Nashville, Buenos Aires, Sydney and Shanghai).
The majority of palms can handle cool summers -it's the rest of the year that is the issue.
NZ's climate isn't hard to define. It's an Oceanic climate that has highish levels of fauna/flora activity in the coldest months, which lessens with more southerly latitudes -classifications aren't intended to describe what climates feel like, only general patterns, or environment.
Nashville really looks like the odd one out here -with a record low 27C colder than Sydney, your previous points using the role of vegetation in discerning climatic differences, becomes redundant.
The majority of palms can handle cool summers -it's the rest of the year that is the issue.
NZ's climate isn't hard to define. It's an Oceanic climate that has highish levels of fauna/flora activity in the coldest months, which lessens with more southerly latitudes -classifications aren't intended to describe what climates feel like, only general patterns, or environment.
Nashville really looks like the odd one out here -with a record low 27C colder than Sydney, your previous points using the role of vegetation in discerning climatic differences, becomes redundant.
Nashville is just a plain old vanilla North American hot summer continental climate. No where near subtropical.
looking at pics of la paz does look continental in vegetation.
Well, these are precisely labels, more or less arbitrarily defined.
I can directly say that La Paz has a “tropical highland” climate. Annual range is very low and sunshine is very strong, typical traits in the tropics. Altitude, on the other side, gives it the lower temperature, more usual in mid-latitudes, and distinguishes it from the actual “tropical”.
Maybe another distinction can be made, and put El Alto (where the airport is found) under the “alpine tundra” label, as frosts become widespread, plant growth is limited, etc.
La Paz is definetly mild subarctic/subpolar since it's cold year round. It's obviously influenced by the Tropics, as their seasons are just cool & dry and cool & wet.
Their natural vegetation is much more similar to what you'll find in a dry Tundra environment rather than to anything Subtropical.
The majority of palms can handle cool summers -it's the rest of the year that is the issue.
NZ's climate isn't hard to define. It's an Oceanic climate that has highish levels of fauna/flora activity in the coldest months, which lessens with more southerly latitudes -classifications aren't intended to describe what climates feel like, only general patterns, or environment.
Nashville really looks like the odd one out here -with a record low 27C colder than Sydney, your previous points using the role of vegetation in discerning climatic differences, becomes redundant.
Indeed, most palms can handle cool-summer climates. It's the cold-hardy ones that usually need hot summers; but those two aren't affected by low average temperatures as long as the seasonal variations are relatively small.
About Nashville having a record low that low, it still qualifies for subtropical in terms of averages. The -17F record low was caused only because a strong piece of the polar vortex happened to hit middle and east Tennessee directly in January 1985 - something most subtropical regions aren't unfortunate enough to experience. It's a reminder that messing with our atmosphere (which weakens the jet stream as the Arctic warms) can lead to extreme weather in general.
The native vegetation may not be subtropical, but the soil in that area is VERY poor, which could've given it a harder time spreading. It's also possible that said cold wave wiped a lot of it out, and if so, it certainly hasn't had time to spread back. It does well if cultivated.
About La Paz having tundra vegetation, it does. Even the lower elevations are more of an extremely mild subalpine climate.
Subtropical refers more to location I would think rather than La Paz's average temperatures. They aren't bad (to me) but they don't bring to mind 'subtropical'.
It is warm much of the year with a very mild winter that generally does not drop below the upper/mid-40s. I would say that this one in particular almost borders the tropical.
New Orleans is also very much subtropical. I can personally vouch for the mildness of the winter (and heat of the summer) as I lived there for a year. Anywhere that you can keep tropical houseplants out all year long and where roses bloom for Christmas is pretty close to tropical!!
Places like Nashville are also subtropical but they are on the northern limit of the subtropical climate.
I've been thinking about subtropical highland climates and whether they really should be classified as subtropical. The wiki article states that La Paz is subtropical highland but is this really a misnomer? When I look at the stats, there is nothing subtropical about La Paz any more than there would be about Reykjavik or Torshavn.
Should highland climates in the tropics particularly have a different classification structure all their own which doesn't take into account other climate criteria in use by either Koeppen or Trewartha? I know that many climate maps label mountainous areas as "H" but this doesn't really do justice the differences in elevation that produce different climates.
I agree that simply throwing "Highland" at a climate fails to do it justice. It is very good to note that a climate is at high altitude, because that helps us to understand many features of the climate, like the bright sunlight and chilly nights. But a subtropical climate would feel nothing like La Paz, and equally you can see that none of the vegetation looks at all like a "subarctic hellhole" as previous posters have suggested. It's temperate.
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