Analysis of station time series reveals hot desert as the dominant global climate type, highlighting updated regional baselines for climate models.
Key Points
Hot desert BWh constitutes the most widespread land category at 14.2% under the Köppen-Geiger climate classification, followed by tropical savannah Aw covering 11.5%.
Assessment using thin-plate spline interpolation with tension mapped monthly temperature station time series and precipitation onto a continuous 0.1°×0.1° global grid.
Highlights unresolved boundary classifications between climate types, providing an updated spatial foundation to evaluate the simulation outputs of global climate models.