Which of the following statements regarding ice-cap climate is/are correct? 1. In the Koeppen climate classification, the ice-cap climate is signified by the letters EF. 2. It is the Earth's most severe climate, where the mean monthly temperature is never above 0 degree Celsius. 3. This climate is found in the Pir Panjal and the Great Himalayas. Select the correct answer using the code given below.
- (a)1 only
- (b)1 and 2 only
- (c)2 and 3 only
- (d)1, 2 and 3
Correct — B, 1 and 2 only. Statement 1 is straight definition. In the Köppen scheme the capital letter E marks the polar group, and it splits into two: ET for tundra and EF for frost, which is the ice-cap climate. Statement 2 states the criterion that makes that split. Group E is defined by the warmest month averaging below 10 degrees Celsius; within it, ET requires the warmest month to be above 0 degrees and EF requires it to be at or below 0. So in an EF climate no month has a mean above freezing, which is exactly what statement 2 says, and no other Köppen type is colder — the description of it as the Earth's most severe climate stands. Statement 3 is the one that fails, and it fails on its geography. The EF regime belongs to Antarctica and the interior of Greenland; when the modern Köppen-Geiger map was drawn, the whole of Antarctica was set to EF apart from a few known tundra stations, and Greenland was set to EF above 1,000 metres and ET below. The Pir Panjal is an outer Himalayan range whose summers are comfortably above freezing, so it cannot carry a climate in which no month rises above zero. With statement 3 out, the code is 1 and 2 only.
- (a)1 only — Rejects statement 2, which is simply the definition of EF restated — the warmest month at or below 0 degrees Celsius. The statement is correct and belongs in the answer.
- (c)2 and 3 only — Drops the correct code letters and keeps the wrong location. EF really is the label for ice cap, while the Pir Panjal is not an ice-cap climate.
- (d)1, 2 and 3 — Accepts the Himalayan location. The Indian Himalaya does carry a Köppen E climate at high altitude, but as the tundra variant; a range as low and as warm in summer as the Pir Panjal is nowhere near the ice-cap threshold.
Köppen's scheme sorts the world's climates by temperature and precipitation into five groups labelled A to E, each divided by further letters. Group E, the polar group, is defined by the warmest month averaging below 10 degrees Celsius, so no tree can grow. Within it the dividing line is the freezing point of the warmest month: above 0 degrees gives ET, the tundra, where a thin summer flora appears; at or below 0 degrees gives EF, the frost or ice-cap climate, where the ground is under permanent snow and ice and there is no growing season at all.
Statement 3 rewards a moment of thought rather than recall, and it is worth being precise about how far it is wrong. The Indian Himalaya does appear in Köppen-based classifications of India under a polar type for the highest reaches of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and permanent ice certainly exists on the highest Himalayan and Karakoram summits. What the statement gets wrong is the pairing. The Pir Panjal is a lesser Himalayan range crossed by roads and passes, with hill stations on its slopes and summer means well above freezing, so no month there stays at or below zero. A statement that names two regions is only true if both are true, and this one is not. The paper spells the classification 'Koeppen', which is the standard way of writing the German ö in plain Roman letters — the same scheme you will see written Köppen elsewhere.
- Group E in Köppen's scheme requires the warmest month to average below 10 degrees Celsius.
- ET, the tundra climate, has its warmest month above 0 degrees Celsius; EF, the ice-cap or frost climate, has it at or below 0.
- In the standard Köppen-Geiger world map, Antarctica is EF apart from a few known tundra stations, and Greenland is EF above 1,000 metres.
- In Köppen-based classifications of India, the polar type E is assigned to the highest parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
- The letters BW stand for desert and BS for steppe, which is the other Köppen code CDS has tested in this very paper.
- Accepting a statement because part of it is true; naming two regions means both must fit.
- Confusing ET with EF — both are polar, but only EF has no month above freezing.
- Assuming any snow-covered mountain range is an ice-cap climate, when the test is the mean temperature of the warmest month.
Asked as a three-statement code item where two statements are definitional and the third attaches the definition to an Indian location that does not fit.
According to the Köppen climatic classification, the letter code Cfa denotes
- (a) Tropical wet climate
- (b) Humid subtropical climate
- (c) Tundra climate
- (d) Tropical wet and dry climate
Answer(b) Humid subtropical climate
The same scheme, tested on a different code. Note how the letters work in both — the capital letter gives the group and the small letters qualify it, so Cfa reads as temperate, no dry season, hot summer, exactly as EF reads as polar, frost.
CDS_GK_2020_II_Q642020Which one of the following countries does not have Tundra vegetation?
- (a) Belarus
- (b) USA
- (c) Russia
- (d) Canada
Answer(a) Belarus
The other half of the polar group. Tundra is the ET type, which shades into the EF ice cap once the warmest month stops rising above freezing, and that CDS item is a check on where in the world the tundra actually lies — the same geographical judgement statement 3 here demands.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the Köppen classification, the tundra climate is denoted by
- (a)EF
- (b)ET
- (c)Dfc
- (d)BWh
Answer(b) ET — E is the polar group and T is tundra, where the warmest month averages above 0 but below 10 degrees Celsius.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The boundary between the Köppen groups D and E is drawn at
- (a)a warmest month averaging 0 degrees Celsius
- (b)a warmest month averaging 10 degrees Celsius
- (c)a coldest month averaging −3 degrees Celsius
- (d)an annual rainfall of 25 centimetres
Answer(b) a warmest month averaging 10 degrees Celsius — below that no trees grow, which is why the E group is treeless.