A Study of Köppen-Geiger Climate Classification Change in Thailand from 1987–2017

Abstract

This study aims to update the map of climate classification of Thailand. Although many researches created world climate classification maps by using the Koppen-Geiger’s theory, the previous global map cannot provide a lot of detail for each area. The up-to-date Thailand’s climate maps are presented and can be used to support the future works. The study was executed by gathering the average monthly temperature data and monthly rainfall data of 99 meteorological stations, which were collected by Thai Meteorological Department and Weather Division of Royal Thai Air Force. Then, the Koppen-Geiger Climate Classification maps of Thailand were created in order to analyse the changes of Thailand’s climate over 31 years passed. The maps of this work are quite different from the previous climate classification map by Koppen-Geiger’s theory. The result shows that Thailand has climate types of the Equatorial Climates (A). Although the Tropical rainforest climate (Af) was found in some year of this study, the overall of this study can be classified that Thailand has only 2 climate classes which are the Tropical wet and dry or savanna climate (Aw) and the Tropical monsoon climate (Am). These climate classes are occurred because of southwest monsoon and northeast monsoon.