UPPSC 2024 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 79 of 150

Correct — D, Both 1 and 2. Statement 1 is the defining property of the climate. The Mediterranean type (Koppen 'Cs', the warm temperate western-margin climate) is the only major climate on Earth with a dry summer and a wet winter, and every textbook profile shows it: heavy falls from November to February, effectively nothing in July and August, with modest annual totals. Statement 2 supplies the reason. At the December solstice the sun's overhead position has migrated to the Tropic of Capricorn, and the whole global machinery of pressure and wind belts — the equatorial low, the subtropical highs, the westerlies, the polar front — migrates southward behind it. That southward shift is what changes the weather over the Mediterranean lands, which lie roughly between 30 and 45 degrees North on the western sides of continents. In summer the subtropical high sits squarely over them, air subsides, and no rain falls; when the belts slide south in winter, the high retreats towards the equator and the westerly belt with its travelling polar-front depressions moves in over the same latitudes, bringing the winter rain of statement 1. So the two statements are not two separate facts but a fact and its cause, which is why the key marks both correct. One honest qualification a serious student should carry: the statement is written from a Northern Hemisphere standpoint. Mediterranean-climate regions in the Southern Hemisphere — central Chile, the Cape of South Africa, southern and south-western Australia — have their winter in June and July, when the belts shift north instead. And the belts lag the sun by several weeks, so their extreme position is reached a little after the solstice, not on the day itself.

• (a)Only 2 — Rejects statement 1, but statement 1 is the single most examinable property of the Mediterranean climate: rain concentrated in the winter half of the year and drought in summer. Discarding it would leave a climate that is wet in summer, which is the China type or the monsoon type, not the Mediterranean type.
• (b)Neither 1 nor 2 — Rejects both, and both are standard. Winter rainfall is what the climate is named for in every classification, and the seasonal migration of the pressure belts with the apparent movement of the sun is the mechanism that produces it. Nothing in the pair is false.
• (c)Only 1 — The most tempting wrong answer, because statement 2 sounds like a claim that needs checking while statement 1 feels safe. But the pressure belts genuinely do shift with the sun — southward around the December solstice, northward around the June solstice — by several degrees of latitude. That shift is exactly why the subtropical high vacates the Mediterranean in winter and lets the westerlies in. Statement 2 is correct, and it is the explanation of statement 1.

The Mediterranean climate occupies the western margins of continents between roughly 30 and 45 degrees of latitude in both hemispheres, sandwiched between the hot deserts on the equatorward side and the cool temperate west-coast climate on the poleward side. Its whole character comes from sitting on the boundary of two wind systems and being handed to each in turn. In the summer half of the year the subtropical high-pressure belt lies overhead, air subsides, and the season is hot, cloudless and dry. In the winter half the belts have migrated equatorward, the region falls inside the westerlies, and cyclonic depressions travelling along the polar front deliver the year's rain. Because the moisture arrives in the cool season and the growing warmth arrives in the dry season, the vegetation has to survive summer drought: hence the sclerophyllous evergreen scrub with waxy leaves, thick bark and deep roots.

The examiner is testing whether you know the cause and not only the label. Almost every candidate can say 'Mediterranean means winter rain'; far fewer can say why, and statement 2 is aimed exactly there. Read it carefully: it does not claim the belts move because of the calendar date, it says the winter solstice is the moment the sun's vertical rays reach their southernmost limit, and the belts move south with them. That is textbook physical geography. The way to reason under exam pressure is to picture the two seasons: sun over the Tropic of Cancer in June, belts pushed north, subtropical high parked over Spain, Italy, Greece, California — hot and dry. Sun over the Tropic of Capricorn in December, belts pulled south, westerlies and depressions sweeping across the same latitudes — mild and wet. Once that picture is in place, both statements are obviously true and the pair reads as a single mechanism. The same picture also explains India's western disturbances, which are depressions of that very westerly belt that reach the north-west of the subcontinent in winter.

• Mediterranean climate is Koppen type 'Cs' — the only major climate with a dry summer and a wet winter; it lies on western continental margins between about 30 and 45 degrees latitude in both hemispheres.
• Regions: the Mediterranean Basin (much the largest), central California, central Chile, the Cape region of South Africa, and southern and south-western Australia around Adelaide and Perth.
• Mechanism: subtropical high overhead in summer produces subsidence and drought; the belts migrate equatorward in winter, bringing the westerlies and polar-front depressions and with them the rain. A typical station records over 12 cm in January and almost nothing in July-August.
• Vegetation is sclerophyllous evergreen scrub, named differently in each region — maquis in the Mediterranean Basin, chaparral in California, fynbos in South Africa, matorral in Chile, mallee in Australia — with evergreen oaks, olive and cork oak.
• It is the world's leading region for citrus fruits, olives and grapes, which is why it is called the orchard land of the world; UPPSC itself asked the citrus question in 2020.

• Assuming the belts shift south in every hemisphere's winter. They follow the sun, so they move south around the December solstice and north around the June solstice, whichever hemisphere you are standing in.
• Treating a statement that gives a mechanism as automatically suspect. UPPSC often pairs a fact with its own cause, and both are then correct.
• Confusing the Mediterranean type with the China type. China-type climate has rain in every month with a summer maximum; the Mediterranean has a summer drought.

UPPSC asks the Mediterranean through vegetation match-lists, crop questions and two-statement mechanism pairs like this one. UPSC prefers to hand you a table of monthly temperature and rainfall, or a verbal sketch of the landscape, and ask you to name the region — so learn the numbers and the look of the place, not only the label.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Mediterranean type of climate is typically found on which margins of continents and within which latitude range?

  • (a)Eastern margins, 10 to 20 degrees
  • (b)Western margins, 30 to 45 degrees
  • (c)Eastern margins, 40 to 60 degrees
  • (d)Western margins, 0 to 10 degrees

  Answer(b) Western margins, 30 to 45 degrees — between the hot deserts on the equatorward side and the cool temperate west-coast climate on the poleward side, in both hemispheres.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The winter rainfall of Mediterranean lands is brought mainly by which wind system?

  • (a)Trade winds
  • (b)Westerlies
  • (c)Monsoon winds
  • (d)Polar easterlies

  Answer(b) Westerlies — depressions travelling along the polar front within the westerly belt reach these latitudes once the pressure belts shift equatorward in winter; the same system feeds India's western disturbances.