Regional climatic similarities in the temperate zones of North and South America

We performed an analysis of the climatic patterns of the temperate zones in North and South America using a global database of monthly precipitation and temperature. Three synthetic variables, identified by a principal component analysis (PCA) of the monthly data, were used: mean annual precipitation, mean annual temperature and the proportion of the precipitation falling during summer. We used a parallelepiped classification algorithm to locate areas in both continents that are climatically similar to five North American Long Term Ecological Research sites and to two South American longterm ecological research sites. There is substantial overlap between the climates of North and South America. Most of the climatic patterns found in South America are well represented in North America. However, there are certain climates in North America that are not found in South America. -from Authors