I think it should first of all be decided how many observation points we need to cover a certain area. For example you all decide how many and where all do you need one to cover a state? As to the world, ask who want to get enrolled in this exercise because I don't think you have much luxury over here.
If it can be done then think of the potential it holds for us and researchers alike.
Regards,
Arif.

Elevation plays a big part in growing conditions here in Dallas, OR.
We are at app. 325 feet. But just we have foothills surrounding town, with elevations of 1,000 feet. Then there are the open places and large areas covered in forest.

Lynn, we know but how to display the information and collection? Ok, if people fill in the data don't show their addresses only the data for weather in that area. The addresses can be in safe keeping with Dave. This showing of addresses, not a good idea the world at large is not mature enough.
Regards,
Arif.

Of course, if we had that nice color-coded map, new members could just click on their area and not have to worry about giving their address.

Altitude?
Valley
Hills
Mountains
River/lake

If wishes were horses but if they do get fulfilled
Regards,
Arif.

Finding other members by location is already supported in the memberlist.

Actually, I meant that they could click on other areas that were the same color as theirs. With presumably similar growing conditions.

I see that the Memberlist (bottom of Home page) lets you enter a search location as a very flexible, free-form text field. I don't know how Dave interprets the search field!

It found some members with each of these search terms, though there are a few seemingly false hits for some of the more exotic search terms.

- ZIP code
- City & State
- City (Paris)
- State (WA or Alberta)
- Country (Pakistan)
- Chernobyl
- Alps
- SE Asia

I didn't know it was that flexible! Especially since the only field I see in our Profile is another free-from text field for "Location".

Somehow or other, Dave is being very clever and relating each member's free-form "Location" text to a world map, and then also relating "Search near" text to a map. I guess.

But that produces a list of "people near me". I think the "climate database" discussion is looking for a way to identify locations or people with similar gardening climates. Perhaps a method that would relate coastal WA USA to similar cool & foggy parts of western Europe, because they both have "Mediterranean climates". Or certain dry, hot parts of Mexico to similar parts of the American desert.

I'm thinking that is a REALLY difficult task to define, let alone implement. For example, should it try to be a "splitter" or a "lumper"? What relative weight should it give to winter lows, to summer highs, day length variation, or to precip?

Manual searches might get you part way there: for example search on:
- average and extreme temperatures,
- average and extreme season precip
- # of frost-free days
- latitude
- stats or check boxes for things like "windy", cloudy days, day-length variation

That's overwhelming to me, just to define.

But I can conceive of some public Profile fields where people could choose a finite number of check boxes that describe their particular gardening challenges or boons,

And a search feature that lets you find people with certain combos of check boxes checked.

And some looked-up stats. Perhaps those stats would each have to be "lumped" in to ranges before they would be easy to search.

I can't decide whether weather stats for each of four seasons is too detailed for such a feature.
I do think that monthly weather stats would be too overwhelming for the public profile.
Annual average high & low temps, and average annual precip, seems desirable for the public Profile climate page.

There are certain belts spanning the world. This sun belt with same conditions, start from Mexico jump to Sahara desert, jump to Arabian desert, then to Iranian , then to Pakistan up to mid India. This belt is either growing cactus or euphorbias. Then you have the neo Tropics Aroids, jump to Central Africa and you find Aroids, jump further to the Indian Ghats and Sri Lanka you find Aroids, now jump from here to Far East Asia, again Aroids. There are belts which are following a certain pattern and can be colour coded. Certain other areas that do not lie in these belts but have same conditions due to modification effects, like North of the Gulf of Mexico. Gulf stream originates from here and carries warm waters North, maybe Florida has conditions of the Tropics I don't know about that. So this can quite also be eligible for the same colour.
Temperate rain forest are also in America, Europe, Asia, Far East Asia. They should have the same climatic conditions. Lets start by these easily conformable areas then see whats left on the map. Slowly slowly catch a monkey.
Regards,
Arif.

>> Lets start by these easily conformable areas then see whats left on the map

That sounds like a good approach. It suggests that Latitude might be the most major factor. It strongly influences temperatures and controls day length. Perhaps the seasonal precip pattern is the next major factor.

However, where there is much altitude variation, it seems as influential as Latitude.

Well, what do you know? Someone has been here before us!
http://www.physicalgeography.n...

Köppen Climate Classification System:

A - Tropical Moist Climates: all months have average temperatures above 18° Celsius.
B - Dry Climates: with deficient precipitation during most of the year.
C - Moist Mid-latitude Climates with Mild Winters.
D - Moist Mid-Latitude Climates with Cold Winters.
E - Polar Climates: with extremely cold winters and summers.

I wonder how he classified "tropical dry" or monsoon regions? I suppose by sub-dividing A and B ... yes, Af and Am and Aw for:
- tropical wet,
- tropical monsoon with wet summers, or
- "tropical wet and dry savanna" with dry winters.

That would serve the purpose of a "short-form" climate classification for a Profile field. Like your latitude belt suggestion, it might be a first step for a more detailed global climate description. If you got multiple "Aw" people onto one thread, they could us how they break down their climate variations.

"Where in the world is Waldo Aw?"

That's a great find! I really like that site and the classifications seem to work. I'm an AW, awwwwwww!

Okay, now to figure out what my area is: 44.9194° N, 123.3158° W

We are Cfb:
Cfb marine climates are found on the western coasts of continents. They have a humid climate with short dry summer. Heavy precipitation occurs during the mild winters because of the continuous presence of mid-latitude cyclones.

But we don't get cyclones?

B) Dry Climates, what about Monsoons that go on for two months? Dry hot climates BW and what about dry cold climates BS, h and k? Seems to be complete. How to make use of it on our user friendly clickable map?
Lynn, we get Cyclones.You all get Hurricanes, Tornadoes and what not. Just take it as disturbance on a grand scale . Wow, for five months you are arid . Now only thing left is to compare your summer temps.
Regards,
Arif.

We are dry for 5 months during summer into fall.
We don't get hurricanes, cyclones or tornadoes in our area. We are pretty much protected for those types of weather disturbances.

As is often the case, Wikipedia gives a very accessible, easy to use article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...

I found that my Koppen climate classification is Csb, "Dry-summer subtropical or Mediterranean climate" .
"These climates ... have moderate temperatures and changeable, rainy weather. Summers are hot and dry... except in the immediate coastal areas, where summers are milder due to the nearby presence of cold ocean currents that may bring fog but prevent rain."

Here's a very detailed site that offers free downloads of CCA continental and global maps of the Koppen system:

http://people.eng.unimelb.edu....
Peel MC, Finlayson BL & McMahon TA (2007), Updated world map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 11, 1633-1644.

Creative Commons Attribution, NonCommercial and ShareAlike License.
download the whole PDF paper:
http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-s...

download just the maps as ZIPPed JPGs:
http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-s...
Can I access the raw data used to create the map?
Yes! The monthly precipitation and temperature data used to construct the map are available for free download from the Global Historical Climatology Network, Version 2.
A GoogleEarth layer (*.kml) of the map is available here by saving the link to your computer and opening the file in GoogleEarth
Individual continental maps from the paper are available here in jpg (Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Europe & Milddle East, Australia) and eps (Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Europe & Milddle East, Australia) format.

Google found many images:
https://www.google.com/search?...

I really like the maps. And my area is in the CFa on the map.

You are "Cf" rather than "Cs". So you don't have any dry season? I sure have a dry summer, but it is a cool summer.

The "b" in my Cfb means my warmest month averages below 22 °C (<72º F), ... but at least 4 months average above 10 °C (>50º F)

I wish I had more detailed Koppen maps of my state! Actually, to be precise, I guess this is the modified "Köppen-Geiger" map.

At first I found this exciting:

"The monthly precipitation and temperature data used to construct the map are available for free download from the Global Historical Climatology Network, Version 2." ,
but it leads to the same kind of NOAA site that I find rather complicated to use.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ghcnm...

They let you download all that monthly data plus some tools.