Please note that this website is currently under construction
This is a new climate classification that was created and developed by Caleb Dickinson.
Dickinson became fascinated by the Köppen climate classification, and eventually decided to create his own climate classification; the Dickinson Comprehensive Climate Classification.
This system produces hundreds of possible climates, many of which are hypothetical.
This system has the advantage of the ability to accurately describe hypothetical climates that may occur in the future due to climate change.
This could be useful in the future as humans continue to warm the earth with fossil fuels.
This system, being more generally more granular than the Köppen, better illustrates the differences between each of the new extreme climates we will see in the future, as well as the climates we see today
This system, because of its edge cases, illustrates some interesting climate factors that are not measured in the Köppen system.
Each climate is measured with 2 or 3 parts, depending on whether the climate is classified by aridity.
The first part measures climate zones by measuring the average temperature of the coldest month in Celsius.
H = Hypercaneal. 50 and above (hypothetical)
X = Uninhabitable. 40 - 50 (hypothetical)
Z = Ultratropical. 30 - 40 (hypothetical)
A = Supertropical. 20 - 30
B = Tropical. 10 - 20
C = Subtropical. 0 - 10
D = Temperate. -10 - 0
E = Continental. -20 - -10
F = Subarctic. -30 - -20
G = Arctic. -40 - -30
Y = Superarctic. Below -40
The second part measures aridity zones.
Aridity zones are measured using evapotranspiration.
To see the method we used to determine aridity zones, please visit the Classification page of this website.
Aridity does not appear to be relevant to the classification of climates that fall within subarctic, arctic, superarctic, cold summer, very cold summer, freezing summer, or frigid summer zones.
Climate classifications that fall within these zones are not measured by aridity.
H = Humid
G = Semihumid
W = Monsoon
M = Mediterranean
S = Semiarid
D = Arid Desert
The third part measures the severity of the summers by measuring the average temperature of the warmest month in Celsius.
H = Hypercaneal Summer. 50 and above (hypothetical)
X = Extreme Hyperthermal Summer. 40 - 50 (hypothetical)
Z2 = Hyperthermal Summer. 35 - 40
Z1 = Scorching Hot Summer. 30 - 35
A2 = Very Hot Summer. 25 - 30
A1 = Hot Summer. 20 - 25
B2 = Mild Summer. 15 - 20
B1 = Cold summer. 10 - 15
C2 = Very Cold Summer. 5 - 10
C1 = Freezing Summer. 0 - 5
Y = Frigid Summer. Below 0
Because of significant discrepancies between datasets covering oceans and Antarctica, and the particular difficulties involved in accurately measuring these regions, we have limited our analysis to land-based (non-Antarctic) data. Current oceanic and Antarctic datasets lack the accuracy necessary for the standards of this website. Any oceanic or Antarctic data used on this website is directly cited.
For baseline climate conditions, we used the 1961–1990 climatological normals from WorldClim v1 (Hijmans et al., 2005).
Climate projections are inherently defined as averages of expected future conditions.
Given that the current observed trajectory most closely follows the high-emission pathway (SSP5–8.5, formerly RCP 8.5), we adopt the 2025 SSP5–8.5 projection as the best available approximation of the present-year (2025) climate.
SSP5-8.5 represents a high-growth, energy-intensive future dominated by fossil fuel use, resulting in very high greenhouse gas emissions—making it a widely used analogue for present-day trajectories under minimal mitigation efforts (Riahi et al., 2017).
For long-term projections, we use the 2100 SSP5–8.5 projection.
This approach reflects the reality that multi-year climatological normals lag behind ongoing climate change and therefore underestimate present conditions, while fully processed and validated datasets for the current year are typically only released several years later.
Future climate projections are from NASA GDDP-CMIP6 (NASA GISS/NCCS, 2021).
References:
Riahi, K., et al. (2017).
The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their energy, land use, and emissions implications.
Global Environmental Change, 42, 153–168.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.05.009
Hijmans, R. J., Cameron, S. E., Parra, J. L., Jones, P. G., & Jarvis, A. (2005).
Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas.
International Journal of Climatology, 25(15), 1965–1978.
https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1276
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS). (2021).
NASA GDDP-CMIP6: Global Daily Downscaled Projections, CMIP6.
Distributed by NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS).
https://doi.org/10.7917/OFSG3345