A global classification of vegetation based on NDVI, rainfall and temperature

Vegetation types are generally classified based only on remote sensing vegetation data, and yet they cannot reflect their connection with climate. Climatic vegetation types reflect the regional vegetation characteristics in terms of climate. The distribution of global climatic vegetation types were identified by K‐means method based on vegetation and climate data. Fourteen climatic vegetation types were classified based on vegetation and climate data. Every type had distinct climate and vegetation characteristics. The regions with similar normalized difference vegetation index ( NDVI ) values but with different climate values such as tropical desert and temperate desert could be distinguished. Our new updated climatic vegetation types agreed ‘fair’ with Koeppen climate types and climate type of Zhang and Yan while agreed ‘good’ with vegetation types when checked with Kappa test.