Climatic Zoning of the Southern Coastline of the Caspian Sea Using Multivariate Statistical Methods

Identifying homogeneous climatic zones plays an important role in the success of regional development programs. The climate system is composed of various elements, factors, and variables that together form the climatic components of a region. Multi-characteristic and multivariate methods can combine and overlap the types of elements and variables effective in constructing the climate with appropriate weights in the climatic zoning area. In the present study, climatic zoning of the Caspian region was performed using factor analysis and cluster analysis. For this purpose, a 30*30 matrix consisting of 30 meteorological stations and 30 climatic and environmental variables was formed. The results of factor analysis showed that the climate of the region is affected by 5 factors including precipitation-humidity, temperature, wind, sunlight, and environmental factors. These factors explained a total of 92.5% of the variance of the data. Then, cluster analysis was performed by the hierarchical integration method of Ward on the five mentioned factors. The results showed four climatic zones including humid, semi-humid, semi-arid, and arid in the study area.