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If you were driving around Sydney, which is 600-900mm wetter than LA (depending on the suburb), you'd think the rainfall is much lower. LA has that wet-tropical feel to it, despite being dry and Sydney looks more 'Mediterranean', despite being uniformly wet. After all, Sydney is ruled by dry sclerophyl forests, which give off a Mediterranean landscape vibe.
So no, I guess I wouldn't base the climate classification on vegetation.
I'm not sure how Los Angeles has a wet tropical feel to it, even parts of the Bay Area look rather dry-ish. Little about these landscapes look Mediterranean nor particularly dry.
London isn't that similar to the warmer parts of New Zealand, regardless of both getting an oceanic designation.
But the forested areas of the northwestern Europe resemble northern US forested areas more so than pacific northwest ones despite being more similar to the Pacific Northwest.
Any from about Christchurch up, wouldn't bear much similarity to the UK at all, other than places where people intentionally go for an English look. Drier inland regions, even in the lower South Island have their own low rainfall adapted species and wouldn't have much similarity to European Oceanic species, unless Portugal/Spain have semi arid Oceanic areas.
I think the PNW would look quite different to US East Coast/Northern and Northern European forests. Rainfall patterns would probably be more significant than temperature in determining vegetation types in US/European higher latitudes.
I'm not sure how Los Angeles has a wet tropical feel to it, even parts of the Bay Area look rather dry-ish. Little about these landscapes look Mediterranean nor particularly dry.
This is a suburb in the Central Coast (near Gosford), NOT Sydney (it's 48 miles north of Sydney). Its climate is more 'humid subtropical'. Many climate classifications put it under a true 'humid subtropical', while leaving Sydney out as borderline or 'oceanic'.
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this looks a bit like some of the US coastal south:
Whilst that is in Sydney (Terrey Hills), it's not even fair to consider it as the poster child of Sydney; it's much cooler and wetter than the rest of the region due to its high elevation and ocean proximity. Even the BOM considers those hilly areas of Ku-Ring-Gai to be oceanic rather than humid subtropical (what most of Sydney falls under).
Not that dry, yes, but certainly not temperate in appearance. That photo looks very southern European/Mediterranean in appearance (looks like Rome: http://goo.gl/maps/iCH0F). Mediterranean vegetation isn't always dry, otherwise most of Southern Europe will look like a desert from space (in which it doesn't).
All the photos you provided where of coastal areas (which are 400mm wetter than the inland), so they'd appear more 'saturated'. Not to mention, we have rainfall variability - at times, the land appears more drier and at others it will appear lush due to the rainfall. Looks like the photos were taken in a La Nina event - even inland Sydney look overly green (we look that 'green' after days of heavy rainfall):
They both look as green to me, except Los Angeles seems to have more deciduous trees. Sydney doesn't have those (unless planted - we don't naturally get deciduous trees). Sydney has a lot of eucalyptus trees, which are olive in colour, thus giving off a 'dry' look.
A place like Victoria, BC would be hard to pin down. It has a kind of hybrid vegetation with some mediterranean species and some temperate oceanic species. I guess that makes sense as it has the temperature profile of a place in the UK but a rainfall pattern profile like the French Riviera...
All the photos you provided where of coastal areas (which are 400mm wetter than the inland), so they'd appear more 'saturated'.
Sydney is on the coast, so I picked coastal views on purposes rather than inland ones.
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They both look as green to me, except Los Angeles seems to have more deciduous trees. Sydney doesn't have those (unless planted - we don't naturally get deciduous trees). Sydney has a lot of eucalyptus trees, which are olive in colour, thus giving off a 'dry' look.
That Los Angeles view is almost all non-native — you should a park instead but Rozenn already found views of it.
It's an old post of mine, but both of these photos are from the same county in England (about 15km apart). Both the same climate, but completely different look due to the soil type.
If we were to identify climates by the local vegetation the climate system would be flawed beyond belief.
Northern Europe's vegetation is very similar to that of Eastern North America and East Asia but the climates are very different with the only similarity they all show are that their all Temperate.
Remember in all these places vegetation need to adapt to similar conditions seasons, change in daylight and in the case of California and New Zealand drought in summer.
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