Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Switzerland is pretty diverse for its size I think. It has climates from temperate oceanic all the way to alpine tundra and glaciers. The are even some climates that are close to humid subtropical.
Chile
Argentina
Ethiopia
Afghanistan
Pakistan
South Africa
NZ is mostly oceanic, with the mountainous areas being subpolar and tundra. It's mostly just temperate and hemiboreal.
Good thread idea, btw.
Isn't hemiboreal regarded as having moderately warm summers? -that wouldn't describe NZ mountains.
NZ isn't much bigger than Victoria, but it stretches over a distance similar to that between Melbourne and Bundaberg, so noticeably different climates can be expected.
NZ is reasonably diverse in climate, because climate includes features other than just temperature . For example- 63 days of rain vs 270 days of rain and 350mm vs 13-16000mm of rain is also quite significant.
Inhabited towns have a 9C difference in average annual temperature, which I think would be reasonably noticeable over the year.
I've been thinking about this for a while. The USA is definitely the most climatically diverse country in the world, but a big reason for that is that it's huge...which got me wondering, where is the greatest climate diversity in the smallest area?
A few contenders I've thought of:
Italy
Japan
New Zealand
Nepal
Bhutan
Spain
Thoughts?
I will say China is equal to USA in the climatic diversity topic.
Japan is the most convincing to me so far.
Almost tropical in Okinawa to pretty darn cold in the mountains of Honshu and mountain valleys of Hokkaido... -42F all time record low at Asahikawa. Not far from Maine's -50F.
Though it isn't very small...
In Switzerland I've taken the train in a single day from places almost permanently covered in ice and snow at 10,000 ft. to the shores of Lake Maggiore, where the Isle di Brissago garden has a permanent Norfolk Island Pine tree, and is almost zone 10a, seldom going below 30F. I think it has the impressive variation for such a small footprint...and one that is so easily conquered - by train LOL. I've seen most of the country in only a couple short trips. It's record low btw is -43F.
"I will say China is equal to USA in the climatic diversity topic."
I wouldn't quite agree. China does have impressive variation, but they have no oceanic-Mediterranean climates with mild, wet winters, and warm dry summers. The basic pattern over most of the country, anywhere mild to semi-mild, is monsoon-influenced rain in summer. Maybe the far, far western areas near the Hindu Kush and Pamirs are winter-wet, but they are also much colder and not at all comparable to say, the coastal strip from Santa Barbara, CA to Portland, OR. You could argue they make up for it by having a true subtropical highlands climate in the southwest around Yunnan, which we do not.* But if you look at overall patterns, that just a variation on their common theme.
* - in the CONUS. We have it in Hawaii.
EDIT: nope, not even that is true. The westernmost Chinese cities I can find are true deserts; what little rain they have doesn't have a winter peak though. You have to go quite far west to escape the monsoon influence; though there's a sharp demarcation. Lahore Pakistan has a definite summer monsoon, while Kabul has the late winter/spring peak I thought might exist in westernmost China.
Last edited by ZigZagBoom; 09-21-2016 at 01:27 AM..
I was going to mention both Switzerland and Andorra as well. Good choices.
Some of the ones on here are leaving me puzzled. Sweden? Really? Sweden is fairly big and the variety ain't that much.
Winter lows quite frequently reach -40 in the far north, something most people down here have no idea about and wouldn't exit their houses if it happened here.
I think four distinct climate zones even not accounting for top of the mountain-climates where people don't live anyways is fairly impressive regardless.
Japan seems the most diverse for its relatively small land area! From tropical in the southernmost islands like Iwo Jima all the way up to very continental (with maritime influence and heavy snowfall) in Hokkaido.
This was pretty interesting, since the OP was looking at climate diversity vs size, it seems like Italy is the most diverse, it had 13 different Koppen climates. That is more than every country mentioned yet it is also only the 71st largest country. Italy is smaller than Japan, Norway, Sweden, France, Spain, Chile, Turkey etc.
For even smaller countries, both Switzerland and Bhutan had 5 climates while ranking 132 and 133 in size respectively. South Korea should be also mentioned with 4 different climates. Andorra was ranked 179 but only had 3 different climates.
Compared to Switzerland of course, it has the same range of Alpine and Alps-influenced climates (glaciers to zn 10 humid subtropical on the Italian Lakes)...but also has the very warm, very dry Mediterranean climate on southern Sicily. Highest temp recorded in Europe there, 119F.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
