What is a Tropical Climate? (hot, warm, moon, temperature)

[Mhc1985]

There have been loads of threads on what the heck a Subtropical climate is and all of them have been going on in circles for a while.

I think it’s been stated many times that classifications and definitions on this matter are very subjective, and highly dependent on the authors who treated them, albeit following some essential geographical concepts as a starting point.

Whatever, I guess we should define what a tropical climate is in a first place in order to later define more clearly a consequent term such as subtropical. This might be a good exercise to see what we can, may or should focus on when we group climates.

In this question I don’t care about actual thresholds, but the parameters used to give a definition.

- If we define it as A, Singapore is tropical, but not Jeddah nor Quito. In this case, a tropical climate is defined by both Air circulation and Temperature.

- If we define it as B, both Singapore and Jeddah are tropical, but not Quito. In this case, a tropical climate is defined by Temperature.

- If we define it as C, both Singapore and Quito are tropical, but not Jeddah. In this case, a tropical climate is defined by Air circulation.

- If we define it as D, Singapore, Jeddah and Quito are all of them tropical. In this case, a tropical climate is defined by Basic Geography or Geodesy.

[deneb78]

I will say A. Only Singapore has a tropical climate. The reason being Jeddah is too dry to grow tropical plant species without irrigation. It only has desert species like dates and Quito is too cool year round for tropical plants like mangosteens. You need moisture and the proper temperature IMO.

[Ed's Mountain]

I'm not sure a definition based strictly on temperature and precipitation thresholds is sufficient.

To me, a tropical climate is one that is continuously under the influence of synoptic-scale tropical systems. That is to say, the weather is determined by entities such as trade winds, the ICTZ, etc., and it is immune to extra-tropical phenomena such as cold fronts and wave cyclones.

As such I could see a wide variety of different temperature and precipitation regimes being fully tropical.

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

I say B, as tropical deserts do exist

[Bisfbath]

I would say B as systems with more categories such as Holdridge life zones show all combinations of temperature and precipitation from tropical rainforest (hot/wet) and tropical desert (hot-dry) to rain tundra (cold-wet) and dry tundra (cold-dry).

Systems like Koppen simplify things by regarding arid climates as primarily defined by their aridity with temperature less important (hence only two temperature divisions) and cold climates totally defined by their coldness (no precipitation divisions). But I think this is only to simplify things.

In common usage though "tropical" does often exclude arid climates.

[marlaver]

In the tropical spectrum, Koppen's is quite ok (miracously), at least in general.

In my personal system:

warm climates grade 1

Tropical (W1t): annual Txº>=23ºC, Pp>=500mm

- Ecuatorial (“rainforest”) (W1te): only a month with Txº<20ºC; Pp>=2000m fairly distributed
- Seasonal (“wet and dry”) (W1ts): Top 3 rainest months with a 100% more Pp than the top 3 driest.
- Seasonal Variable (W1tv): W1ts with three extra and consecutive rainest months (non consecutive with the top 3) whose
Pp amount is <50% below the top 3 rainest.
- Moonson (W1tm): W1ts with a driest month of <50mm

[Asagi]

Originally Posted by deneb78

I will say A. Only Singapore has a tropical climate. The reason being Jeddah is too dry to grow tropical plant species without irrigation. It only has desert species like dates and Quito is too cool year round for tropical plants like mangosteens. You need moisture and the proper temperature IMO.

Jeddah is too dry to grow anything period without irrigation. Desert/xeric vegetation and tropical vegetation are not mutually exclusive and there are several dry tropical biomes. Dates are also not a true xeric plant like cacti and will not grow in the desert unless near an underground source of water or irrigated, that's why you only find them in oases and not in the middle of the Arabian desert. Looking at pictures of Jeddah, it would seem coconuts and dates are about equally as common.

The seashore around Jeddah is the epitome of tropical. Coral reefs in the Red Sea are one of the most well preserved and biodiverse coral reefs in the world.

[wawa1992]

I would say B, and a coldest month of 18 C / 64 F or warmer seems to be a good cut-off for tropical. I would call something with a coldest month of about 24 C / 75 F or warmer "equatorial" or "super-tropical" or something like that. These climates are hot year-round.

As for precipitation, I've always said that the B climate (arid) grouping under Koppen is unnecessary and precipitation should be considered a classification off of temperature. For instance, a tropical desert climate would be a climate with a tropical temperature regime, but arid. (Same with subtropical desert, humid continental desert, etc).

[steiconi]

Would you consider Hawaii to have a tropical climate?
There are wet areas and dry areas, and 13,000 ft mountains, all on the same island, just a couple hours apart.
I voted for the geographical definition.

[easthome]

There is ONE reason why Tropical climates are called 'Tropical' & if you realise why then you will know that Tropical has very 'set in stone' bounderies (literally). Places that have Tropical like climates but are not in the Tropics are called sub-tropical, these are (for obvious reasons) far more difficult to interprate and therefore define.