Bioclimate of Jericho in Palestine

Abstract

Jericho is an ancient Canaanite Palestinian city and one of the oldest cities in history, which dates back to more than 10.000 BC (Stone Age). It is located near to the Jordan River, north of the Dead Sea, and north of Jerusalem. Moreover, it considered the lowest area in the earth and has a unique climatic zone. during the study period (1975-1995), was utilized the Salvador Rivas Martinez scale to classify the bioclimate of the earth to analysis the climate and bioclimate data, which was obtained from one station from Palestinian Meteorology Department (Jericho station). The results revealed that the mean monthly temperature was 22.4 0C, mean maximum temperature was 34.8 0C, mean monthly minimum temperature was 15.3 0C, the value of the annual ombrothermic index was 0.6, the compensated thermicity index is very high around 1209/1209 and the simple continentality index was 16.7. The bioclimate of Jericho is located within the zones of the thermal model under the inframediterranean basin, the dry and arid regions. Jericho is belong to Mediterranean desertic-oceanic, the latitudinal belt as subtropical, while continentality is oceanic-low eu-oceanic.