Eurasia: warm climate zones and inland waters

Eurasia’s warm climate zones are the subtropical, tropical, subequatorial (two) and equatorial: five altogether. The subtropical zone stretches from the Iberian Peninsula to the Pacific coast and covers the largest area: tropical air dominates in summer, temperate air in winter. On the Mediterranean coast winters are warm and rainy and summers hot and dry (the Mediterranean climate); inland continentality increases, summers reach +30…+35 °C and rainfall is 100–150 mm; southern Central Asia, including the south of Uzbekistan, belongs to this type. In the east there is a subtropical monsoon climate. The tropical zone includes the Arabian Peninsula, the Iranian Plateau and the Indus basin: summers are very hot (+30…+35 °C), winters warm (+18…+24 °C) and rainfall very low — in most places no more than 100–200 mm a year (the book’s 500–1 000 mm applies only to some mountain edges). The subequatorial zone includes the Indian and Indochina peninsulas, where the monsoon climate dominates: a very wet summer and dry, warm winter. On the Meghalaya Plateau in north-east India (Mawsynram, Cherrapunji) about 11 800 mm of rain falls a year, the most in the world. The equatorial zone covers the south of the Malay Peninsula and the Greater Sunda Islands: temperature about +24…+27 °C all year and over 3 000 mm of rain. The southern subequatorial zone is on half of Java and the islands to the east, with slightly less rain (1 000–2 500 mm).