1. What is the Köppen Climate Classification System and what are the five main
climate types described in this system? Provide a brief description of each.
(5 points)
2. What are the seven controls of climate as outlined in class lecture and
provide a description of each? (7 points)
3. What is the town you writing about for this project? Provide an absolute
location of the town you are discussing and a physical description of the
area. You may want to include a map. (8 points)
4. What is the climate type according to the Köppen climate classification
system for your city/location? Provide the two or three letter abbreviation and
briefly describe the climate type (20 points).
a. You can use the map and the source on the following pages to help you narrow down
the climate type. You will also notice that some of the controls of climate are
represented on the map.
5. Discuss the climate controls that gives your town its unique climate according
to Koppen Climate Classification. (20 points)
a. Review lectures, your course notes, and textbook readings, and my lectures on the 7
climate controls. Review the tables in our textbook that give a description, controlling
factors, geographic distribution, and distinguishing characteristics for the climates.
More on the following page.
6. Discuss the seasonal changes in weather and air masses, and the
temperature and precipitation averages and patterns for your location.
(20 points)
a. Suggested websites above may help you obtain this information. You may want to
include a graph or a table depicting your town precipitation and temperature monthly
averages. Remember to cite the reference under the tables or graphs and put the
source in the bibliography.
7. Discuss the vegetation (biogeography) common to the area as it relates to
climate. Why does the location have the vegetation type and what makes it
unique to the climate type of the location? What type of animals live in this
location? (18 points)
8. REFERENCES: (2 points)
a. Site any reference you use on the last page (bibliography) and make
sure you cite the reference within your document as well for direct
quotes and/or paraphrasing.
If you use a website as a source such as NOAA or Weather.com, try to locate the
author who provided the information on the topic. If you cannot find the author, use the
line and year convention as illustrated below in replace of a named author. If you
choose to use my lectures which is perfectly fine, you will need to use the following
format below in the bibliography. If you can find an author of a website, great. If you
cannot find the author, you can cite substituting a line for an author in your reference
section as illustrated below. Do not put the website name in the body of your paper at
the end of the sentence. The line substitutes for an author(s). If you have multiple
websites of the same year that you have used with no author, then you can use the
alphabet at the end of the year in your citations to differentiate between them in the
body of the paper (see below).
One of your web citations would look like this in your reference (bibliography) section
the purpose of this assignment is to create connections between all the concepts you
have learned so far in this course while discussing the climate of your hometown.
For your hometown, discuss the vegetation characteristics, controls of climate,
temperature and precipitation averages and patterns, and indicate and describe the
climate type according to the Köppen Classification System. Provide the two or three-letter description in your paper such as Aw, Cfa, or Dfa. See below and on the following
pages for paper format and point structure.
Format
The format of your paper should be 12-point font, double-spaced, with one-inch
margins. The total page length of your written paper should be no less than 1.5
pages. Include a cover page with your name and a bibliography page of your
Physical Geography Project
