Climate Context
Criora uses the Köppen-Geiger climate classification to determine which climate risks are materially relevant at a given location. A drought score in central Greenland or a snow-and-ice score in the Sahara would be misleading; the climate zone tells the platform which risks to compute and which to skip.
Where you’ll see it
- The Köppen layer in the map’s Temperature group displays the global climate zones.
- Every site report carries the location’s Köppen code (e.g.
Cfa) on the Overview tab. - Internally, the code drives risk-relevance flags so that irrelevant risks are skipped rather than scored zero.
Reading a Köppen code
Codes are two or three letters:
[Major group] [Precipitation pattern] [Temperature pattern]| Examples | Meaning |
|---|---|
Cfa | Temperate, no dry season, hot summer |
Dfb | Continental, no dry season, warm summer |
BWh | Arid, desert, hot |
Aw | Tropical, savanna with distinct dry season |
ET | Polar tundra |
The five major groups
| Group | Name | Temperature characteristics | Precipitation pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Tropical | All months ≥ 18 °C | High annual rainfall |
| B | Arid | Evaporation exceeds precipitation | Desert / steppe |
| C | Temperate | Coldest month −3 °C to 18 °C | Moderate, often seasonal |
| D | Continental | Coldest month < −3 °C, warmest > 10 °C | Continental, snowy winters |
| E | Polar | Warmest month < 10 °C | Low precipitation |
Risk relevance by zone
| Zone | Relevant risks | Skipped risks |
|---|---|---|
| A Tropical | Flooding, heat stress, wildfires (seasonal-dry sub-types) | Snow & ice, frost |
| B Arid | Drought, water stress, wildfires, heat stress | Heavy precipitation, flooding (mostly) |
| C Temperate | Storms, precipitation, heat stress (warm sub-types), wildfires | Snow & ice (most sub-types) |
| D Continental | Snow & ice, frost, storms, flooding | (Most risks relevant) |
| E Polar | Snow & ice, cold extremes | Wildfires, water stress |
Coastal-marine and sea-level-rise risks are evaluated based on distance to coast, not Köppen code. A location more than ~100 km from any coastline skips these regardless of climate zone.
Why this matters
Without zone-aware relevance, the driver dimension in your report would routinely point to nonsense (e.g. Snow & Ice Hazards for a tropical site that simply has zero snow data). The Köppen layer also lets you sanity-check why a particular risk on a report is, or isn’t, scored.
Source
Köppen-Geiger 1 km global classification from Beck et al. 2018, distributed by GloH2O under CC-BY-4.0.
Related
- Risks Overview: the full list of risks Criora can score
- Working with Layers: view the Köppen layer on the map
- Data Sources: full provider details