CLIMEX may be used to predict relative abundance of a species in different places ('Compare Locations' function), based on long-term averages of meteorological data, and to predict relative abundance of a species in the same place under climatic data in different years ('Compare Years' function).

The 'Match Climates' function of CLIMEX is used to search the meteorological database for locations with climates similar to that of a nominated location. The level of similarity is given by the 'Match Index' with a range from 0 to 100, which is the product of five component indices, I_tmax, I_tmin, I_rtot, I_hum and I_rpat (maximum temperature, minimum temperature, total rainfall, relative humidity and rainfall pattern, respectively). Each of these indices range between 0 and 1, with a value of 1 indicating an exact match in the corresponding variable. All five indices can be weighted so that any climate match can have more (or less) emphasis on one or more indices. The default setting is for each of the indices to be weighted evenly, except for relative humidity which is not used.

Results from the three functions can be displayed as a map, table or graph.

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