NDA (I) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 102 of 149

Correct — A, the code 4 3 1 2. Read the Köppen letters and each pairing follows. Amw is a tropical climate with a short dry season and very heavy rain, which is the west coast — the Kerala and Karnataka coast, item 4. Dfc is a cold, humid climate with no dry season and a short cool summer, the only Indian region answering to which is the high, wet north-east, Arunachal Pradesh, item 3. Cwg is the warm temperate type with a dry winter, the classic climate of the Ganga plain, so Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, item 1. As is the tropical type whose dry season falls in summer, which describes the Tamil Nadu coast, item 2 — the Coromandel gets its rain from the retreating monsoon in October and November and stays dry through the southwest monsoon months.

• (b)4 1 3 2 — It keeps the west coast and the Tamil Nadu coast in place but exchanges the two inland entries, giving cold humid Dfc to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The Ganga plain has hot summers and dry winters, not a short cool summer with year-round moisture.
• (c)2 1 3 4 — It opens by pairing the wettest Indian climate type with the Tamil Nadu coast, which is one of the drier stretches during the southwest monsoon, and it repeats the Dfc error for the Ganga plain.
• (d)2 3 1 4 — The middle two pairs are right, but the first and last are exchanged, sending the monsoon type with a short dry season to Tamil Nadu and the summer-dry type to the Kerala and Karnataka coast. The west coast is the wettest part of peninsular India in the summer monsoon, not the driest.

Wladimir Köppen classified climates by letters. The first capital gives the broad group — A for tropical, B for dry, C for warm temperate, D for cold and E for polar. The second letter describes the rainfall regime — f for no dry season, m for monsoon, s for a dry summer and w for a dry winter. A third letter refines temperature or, in the Indian usage, region. So Amw reads as tropical, monsoonal, with a short dry period; As as tropical with dry summers; Cwg as warm temperate with dry winters in the Gangetic type; Dfc as cold, wet all year, with a short cool summer.

Nothing in this match needs memorising if the letters are read, and the Tamil Nadu pairing is the one that rewards it: 's' means the dry season is in summer, and the Coromandel coast really is dry in the summer monsoon because it lies parallel to the Bay of Bengal branch and in the rain shadow of the Arabian Sea branch, taking its rain instead in October and November. One present-day note: the Köppen table of Indian climatic regions that this item is lifted from appears in the standard Indian geography texts, but the rationalised NCERT Class 11 chapter on climate no longer prints it, so a student today will usually meet these codes in a reference book rather than in the school text.

• In Köppen's scheme A is tropical, C is warm temperate and D is cold; f means no dry season, m monsoon, s a dry summer and w a dry winter.
• Amw, the tropical monsoon type with a short dry season, covers India's west coast south of Goa — the Kerala and Karnataka coastline.
• Cwg, warm temperate with a dry winter, is the climate of the Ganga plain, including Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
• As, the tropical type with a dry summer, describes the Tamil Nadu coast, which receives its rain from the retreating monsoon in October and November.
• Dfc, cold and humid with a short summer, is found in Arunachal Pradesh.

• Mixing up s and w — s marks a dry summer, w a dry winter.
• Assuming the whole of the peninsula shares one climate; the west coast and the Coromandel are opposites in their rainy season.
• Placing the cold Dfc type in the Himalayan west; in this scheme it is the wet north-east that carries it.

NDA gives a Köppen code and asks for the region, or gives a region and asks for the code — and has done both in recent papers.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In Köppen's classification, the letter 's' in a climate code such as As indicates

  • (a)a dry summer
  • (b)a dry winter
  • (c)no dry season
  • (d)a short cool summer

  Answer(a) a dry summer — which is why As fits the Tamil Nadu coast, dry in the summer monsoon and wet in October and November.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Amw type of climate in India is found chiefly along

  • (a)the Coromandel coast
  • (b)the west coast south of Goa
  • (c)the Ganga plain
  • (d)western Rajasthan

  Answer(b) the west coast south of Goa — the Kerala and Karnataka coastline, which has very heavy monsoon rain and only a short dry season.