Here's a tip for Permaculture Designers and PDC Students:
Climate is one of the first things you will analyse when you are beginning a
Permaculture design project.
You can add a climate classification layer to Google Earth, and find out the climate of any location in the world. It's a huge time saver.
The Köppen-Geiger climate classification system is much like hardiness zones, except they are standardised and they apply globally. This system is useful, because it takes into account rainfall, as well as temperature.
Here's the wikipedia entry about the
Köppen-Geiger climate classification system
The climate classification information and a link to download the Google Earth layer is available here:
http://people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/mpeel/koppen.html
The map is free and is for non-commercial use only.
Instructions:
-Download Google Earth if you haven't already.
-Now download the .kml file of the "detailed info version", then open it with Google Earth.
-To do this on a Mac, right click on the highlighted text, then click "download linked file".
-The file will be called "World_Koppen_Gerrit_Hendriksen.kml".
-Find it in your downloads folder, right click on the file, then click "open".
-Google Earth will launch, and in the "Places" toolbox, (on the left of your screen), you will have a new layer called "World Koppen" in the "Temporary Places" folder.
-If you right click the layer, you can save the layer to the "My Places" folder.
You can now zoom in to any location and find the climate, this is also a really great way to find climate analogues of your site, (places with similar climate).
The layer can easily be toggled on and off.
NB: You need to reference the map correctly in your assessment, ask your instructor how they would prefer you to do this.
Here is the complete reference: Peel MC, Finlayson BL & McMahon TA (2007), Updated world map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 11, 1633-1644.
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