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Theor Appl Climatol (2013) 114:95106 DOI 10.1007/s00704-012-0823-7
ORIGINAL PAPER
Clustering current climate regions of Turkey by using a multivariate statistical method
Cem Iyigun & Murat Trke & nci Batmaz &
Ceylan Yozgatligil & Vilda Purutuolu &
Elin Kartal Ko & Muhammed Z. ztrk
Received: 16 July 2012 /Accepted: 11 December 2012 /Published online: 3 January 2013 # Springer-Verlag Wien 2012
Abstract In this study, the hierarchical clustering technique, called Ward method, was applied for grouping common features of air temperature series, precipitation total and relative humidity series of 244 stations in Turkey. Results of clustering exhibited the impact of physical geographical features of Turkey, such as topography, orography, landsea distribution and the high Anatolian peninsula on the geographical variability. Based on the monthly series of nine climatological observations recorded for the period of 19702010, 12 and 14 clusters of climate zones are determined. However, from the comparative analyses, it is decided that 14 clusters represent the climate of Turkey more realistically. These clusters are named as (1) Dry Summer Subtropical Semihumid Coastal Aegean Region; (2) Dry-Subhumid Mid-Western Anatolia Region; (3 and 4) Dry Summer Subtropical Humid Coastal Mediterranean region [(3) West coast Mediterranean and (4) Eastern Mediterranean sub-regions]; (5) Semihumid Eastern Marmara Transition Sub-region; (6) Dry Summer Subtropical Semihumid/Semiarid Continental Mediterranean region; (7) Semihumid Cold Continental Eastern Anatolia region; (8) Dry-subhumid/Semiarid Continental Central Anatolia Region; (9 and 10) Mid-latitude Humid Temperate Coastal Black Sea Region [(9) West Coast Black Sea and (10) East Coast Black Sea sub-regions]; (11)
Semihumid Western Marmara Transition Sub-region;(12) Semihumid Continental Central to Eastern Anatolia Sub-region; (13) Rainy Summer Semihumid Cold Continental Northeastern Anatolia Sub-region; and (14) Semihumid Continental Mediterranean to Eastern Anatolia Transition Sub-region. We believe that this study can be considered as a reference for the other climate-related researches of Turkey, and can be useful for the detection of Turkish climate regions, which are obtained by a long-term time course dataset having many meteorological variables.
1 Introduction and literature review
Climate has been evolving since the existence of the Earth because of some internal and external factors as well as the enforcements that were given rise by the human being. Climate change, on the other hand, is portrayed as statistically significant changes in the average state of the climate...