Asia Climate

The large extent and changing altitude cause strong climatic differences. Parts of Mesopotamia and the Punjab (in Pakistan and northwest India) are among the hottest areas on earth; Eastern Siberia has the lowest temperatures in Asia; Oymyakon in Yakutia (in the Far East of Russia) is considered to be the cold pole of the northern hemisphere (temperature minimum [1933] −67.8 ° C).

The climate of Asia is largely continental with large daily and seasonal temperature fluctuations. In winter, the most extensive high-pressure area on earth lies over the cooled-down countries of North and Inner Asia, while in summer, low-pressure areas form particularly in the inner-Asian-Indian-Arab inland regions. The wind systems develop according to this different pressure distribution on the continent and over the surrounding seas, whereby the monsoons with their alternation of rainy and dry seasons are of particular importance for East and South Asia.

In Central and North Asia, January mean temperatures range from −15 to −20 ° C (in Northeast Siberia down to −50 ° C), in South Asia they rise to 25 ° C. In summer the differences are smaller (in large areas the July mean is 25–30 ° C and even in the Arctic Ocean it is often 15 ° C).

Only parts of West Asia, Turans and East Asia receive winter or spring rainfall, while the vast majority of Asia receives summer rain. The large frontal and inner-Asian dry zones are opposed to very humid peripheral areas, especially in monsoon Asia; Cherrapunji in northeast India is one of the wettest places on earth (annual mean 11,440 mm). In West Asia, desert, steppe and warm, temperate subtropical climates predominate, in South Asia a tropical monsoon climate, in mainland East Asia a strongly graduated extra-tropical monsoon climate, in Inner Asia winter-cold desert and steppe climate, in North Asia the winter-cold climate of the coniferous forests, which merges into the tundra climate in the north.

Central Asia

Central Asia, the sparsely populated regions in the interior of Asia that have no outflow to the oceans, are characterized by a strict continental climate, framed by the Himalayas, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan, by the peripheral mountains of southern Siberia and in the east by the Great Chingan.

Central Asia, which is divided by numerous mountain ranges, includes the highlands of Tibet (highest highlands on earth, on average 4,500 m above sea level), the Tarim Basin with the Takla-Makan desert, the basin landscape of the Djungary (mainly sandy desert in the interior), in the northeast the Mongolia with the desert regions of the Gobi and neighboring areas of Russia. Politically, Central Asia includes West China (with Tibet, Sinkiang and Inner Mongolia), Mongolia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, also the easternmost parts of Uzbekistan and the southeast of Kazakhstan as well as the South Siberian republics of the Russian Federation (Altai, Khakassia, Tuva, Buryatia). Afghanistan lies in the transition area to West Asia.

With regard to the delimitation, however, there are different views. Deviating from the geographical definition, politically, in part, all the states of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, see countryaah) as well as Afghanistan are fully viewed as part of Central Asia. Central Asia is therefore not identical to Central Asia, although the two terms overlap depending on political, economic, ethnographic or cultural aspects.