RAS question
According to Koppen's climate classification, most of Peninsular India falls under which climate type?
Correct answer: (A) Aw (Tropical Savanna).
According to Koppen's climate classification, most of Peninsular India falls under the Aw, or Tropical Savanna, climate type.
Explanation
Most of Peninsular India is classified as Aw, the Tropical Savanna or tropical wet-dry climate, because this region has a clear alternation between wet and dry seasons. INFLIBNET eBooks, Atmospheric Processes: Climatic Classification lists Tropical Savanna (Aw) among India's Koppen climatic regions and states that most of the peninsular plateau has this climate. That directly matches the question's focus on Peninsular India. Nearby or contrasting zones are classified separately: the western coast south of Goa falls under a monsoon type with a short dry season, dry climates occur in the interior peninsula, Rajasthan and Haryana, and extreme western Rajasthan has hot desert conditions. So Aw is the broad peninsular answer, while Am, BWh and Cwa/Cwg-type alternatives describe other Indian regions.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) BWh denotes hot desert conditions, linked to western Rajasthan and narrowed to extreme western Rajasthan, not most of Peninsular India.
- (C) Cwa, or humid subtropical climate, belongs to the northern plains, so it does not describe the dominant climate of the peninsular plateau.
- (D) Am, or Tropical Monsoon climate, is mainly associated with the Western Coast and North-East India, whereas the question asks for most of Peninsular India.
Concept
This tests the Indian geography syllabus area of climatic classification, especially Koppen's letter-code mapping for India's regions. It recurs in RAS because questions often ask candidates to distinguish broad climate regions from nearby exceptions such as the western coast, northern plains and western Rajasthan.