Oceanicity - continentality gradient in Europe & the world (climate, average, temperature)

[Jakobsli]

The oceanicity - continentality gradient is dependent on, among other factors, the distance to the sea, the prevailing winds, and mountains.
Here is a map of Europe and the Middle East that seems fairly accurate wrt to the oceanicity - continentality gradient. For larger map, use link and zoom in.

Credit (webpage):http://www.globalbioclimatics.org/cb...ntality_gb.png

Here is a closer look at the Nordic countries. O3 (dark blue) = strongly oceanic, O2 = clearly oceanic, O1 = weakly oceanic, OC = intersection oceanic-continental, C1 = weakly continental. On the larger Europe map with smaller resolution, the smaller area of continental climate in the valleys in Central Norway is not marked, but the larger area in the far north of Sweden, Finland, Norway (Finnmark) and a slice of Russia is marked. The map of the Nordic countries is based on humidity and precipitation according to txt.

Credit: Feltkurskompendium Biologisk mangfold Terrestrisk biologi - PDF

Map for North America: http://www.globalbioclimatics.org/cb...ntality_gb.png

South America, Africa, Asia, Australia also available here under heading Continentality: Bioclimatic & Biogeographic Maps

Some observations:
In Mid-Norway, one can drive from a O3 (strongly oceanic) area (like Kristiansund, Ålesund) to an area with C1 (weakly continental, like Dombås, Drivdal) within some hours (ca 3-4 hours), corresponding to a change in continentality as from Leeds to Moscow. And drive 2hrs from Trondheim to get to C1 areas. I guess other mountain areas also have those valleys much more continental than surrounding areas, like in British Columbia.
Trondheim is O1 - weakly oceanic (about like much of Germany, eastern France, western Poland, southeastern Sweden). Oslo is OC (just barely), like Helsinki.

Ireland, some (but not all) coastal areas of UK, and some thin coastal areas of France, Spain, Portugal and Iceland seems to be the most oceanic in Europe. Eastern part of European Russia is the most continental part of Europe, no surprise there. Eastern Siberia is the most continental in the world.

Look at the Arabian peninsula, much less continental then one migh expect. Maybe that map is mostly based on temperature range?

In North America, a much smaller area is oceanic, as we know the Rocky mts block most of the continent from oceanic influences.
What are your thoughts, are those map accurate?

The fundamental question is perhaps about what defines oceanicity and continentality.

[Isleofpalms85]

Without going too deeply into specifics, I recall seeing a map with a continentality gradient for America, and by the looks of that map, it appeared continentality begin increasing anywhere west of Indiana and with continentality increasing considerably west of about the Mississippi River; in general, the Great Plains region has probably the highest level of continentality in the conterminous United States.

[lommaren]

South Yemen ain't really oceanic, that's tropical Funny map to include the tropics in that aspect...

Unsurprised to where southern Sweden ends up, but my area is clearly more continental than the deep south but never mind

[marlaver]

The World Map:


Click in the link for higher resolution:
http://www.globalbioclimatics.org/cb...ntality_gb.png

[Ethereal]

Originally Posted by marlaver

The World Map:


Click in the link for higher resolution:
http://www.globalbioclimatics.org/cb...ntality_gb.png

Thanks for this.

Hm...Inland Sydney and Santiago are definitely more "continental" than Near Eastern coast (Beirut) and North African coast (Alexandria), which have a slightly lesser annual temp range.

[sedimenjerry]

The N America map just looks like a map of average temperature or something. Not sure how accurate that is when Cape Cod is deemed more continental than parts of west Texas

[ase42dv]

Seems very accurate.

If someone wants to know why Spain is more detailed in that map, is because GlobalBioClimatics is owned by a Spanish geography company. As well as OGIMET or Tutiempo.

[wawa1992]

I'm in the yellow, would like to be in the yellow-orange, so I'm only one zone off

Also wow at Australia, I would have expected them to have some (relatively small) area in the yellow.

[Palider]

It's pretty much a map of the annual temperature ranges.

[Ethereal]

Originally Posted by wawa1992

I'm in the yellow, would like to be in the yellow-orange, so I'm only one zone off

Also wow at Australia, I would have expected them to have some (relatively small) area in the yellow.

We do.

The map didn't get us right.