A streamlined system using growing degree days for climate classification that delivers both temperature and aridity information in all classes and an added hypertropical class. Primary thermal classes remain consistent with the primary Köppen climate classes and their established connection to biomes. The eight class to tif tool ends with a .tif file of climate classes. The steps may need to be modified if using different inputs than Envirem and WorldClim 1.4. Envirem is missing datum information, but ArcGIS makes the same calculations without the project raster step. Note that WorldClim 1.4 applies a scaling factor of 10 for temperature data, which is propagated in Envirem. Import the symbology layer file climate_8_class. If ArcGIS is being cranky about displaying the (blue) hypertropical class, try reseting with the 'Add All Values' button, followed by hitting 'Default Colors'.

{"references": ["Title, P.O. and Bemmels, J.B. 2018. ENVIREM: an expanded set of bioclimatic and topographic variables increases flexibility and improves performance of ecological niche modeling. Ecography 41:291-307.", "Hijmans, R.J., Cameron, S.E., Parra, J.L., Jones, P.G. and Jarvis, A. 2005. Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. International Journal of Climatology: A Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 25:1965-1978."]}

Manuscript in review.