There are, of course, certain drawbacks from which this classification scheme suffers. Despite the fact that the author himself revised and modified his system several times, he always felt it to be imperfect.
Koppen based his classification on the mean monthly values of temperature and precipitation. By these statistics the most potent factor of precipitation can only be estimated, rather than measured accurately.
This makes comparison from one locality to another rather difficult. Further, Koppen did not take into account such weather elements as winds, precipitation intensity, amount of cloudiness, and daily temperature extremes only for the sake of making his classification generalized and simple.
Another major drawback is that it is empirical and, therefore, is based on facts and observations. The causative factors of climate have been totally ignored. Thus, the air masses, which form the very basis of modern climatology, could not find any place in Koppen’s classification.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Lastly, the letter symbols used by Koppen in his climatic classification provide international shorthand describing climatic regions that are rather difficult to characterize in words.
At first the classification scheme may look a bit difficult, but its close examination reveals that it is based on certain critical values with which all geography students soon become familiar.