CLIMATE CLASSIFICATION OF PAKISTAN Saif Ullah Khan 1 Ph.D Scholar
[email protected] Prof. Dr. Mahmood-Ul-Hasan 2
[email protected] Prof. Dr Fazal Karim Khan3 Dr Anjum Bari (Late)4 1. Ph.D Scholar Department of Geography University of Peshawar, Manager GIS and Mapping USF CO 5th Floor HBL Tower Blue Area Islamabad, Pakistan 2. Chairman Department of Geography, Urban and Regional Planning Peshawar University, NWFP, Pakistan. 3. Former, Chairman Department of Geography University of Karachi, Sind, Pakistan. 4. Late, Director, Pakistan Meteorological Department, Islamabad, Pakistan Abstract The work deals with the climates of Pakistan. It is based on the study and analysis of the data regarding temperature, rainfall, number of rainy days, humidity, wind speed and direction, pressure, evapotranspiration, sunshine, and also with the classification of climates. The factors bringing variation in the climates of Pakistan are latitudinal location, proximity to sea level, rough topography, continentitlity, marine influence in the extreme south, vegetation cover, and soil contents. On the basis of temperature, Pakistan has been classified into five regions i.e. hot, warm, mild, cool, and cold. The southern parts of Pakistan have high temperature (28oC at Hyderabad) that decreases toward north upto 10oC at Astore. Four rainfall regions have been identified i.e. arid, semi-arid, sub-humid, and humid. The rainfall concentration decreases from 171.4cm (68.6inches) at Murree in the north to 3.4cm (1.5inches) at Nokkundi in the south. The eastern part of Pakistan receives heavy rains during summer, from southwesterly currents, called monsoon, whereas the western parts have high rains in winter, from southwesterly winds, called western disturbances.