Note it never really freezes, but growth is determined by precipitation (blue line is below the red line). This is also known as "chaparral" or the "fynbos" or "nice forest" in Afrikaans (South Africa). Look up the main wine regions of the world, they will fit this biome. Also consider how many Italians could start vineyards in northern California...
Temperate grassland/cold desert is a dry, grassy area, like Oklahoma, although it does get very cold there, so think more of Texas, or the Gobi desert. Again, growth is rain limited: (you may recall these are near Hadley/Ferrel cell subsidence, so dry air from space falls here). These areas tend to be far from large bodies of water, so they have more extreme temperatures than similar latitudes near water (e.g. Italy, France, California)
Tropical rainforest is the rainiest of them all, and much of our island has this near the shore. Warm temperatures, and paradoxically poor soil nutrition (all of the nutrients are in the plants). On Mt. Waialeale on Kauai, the rainfall is 480 INCHES per year, 2.5 times as high as the high point on the chart below:
Africa and Brazil hold the next biome:
Savanna or tropical seasonal forest. Think of Madagascar (the film): not many large trees, room for animals to roam, lots of grass, happy lions, maybe a bossy penguin or two...Growth dependent on rainfall: (blue line below red one)
Finally, the
subtropical desert biome, like what you'd see in the Sahara desert (another film), or most of Australia, the Atacama in Chile, the Mojave desert in California, and some of Mexico. Note the Gobi desert is not on this list-too cold. Again, note these areas are where dry air subsides (falls) from the Hadley and Ferrell cells.
Biome Game:
Clues:
Find these places in the first three climatographs: Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaSan Diego, CaliforniaBelem, Brazil
Find these biomes below:
tropical rain forest
tropical savanna
desert
temperate grasslands
temperate deciduous forest
temperate rain forest
boreal forest
tundra
Find these biomes:
Tropical Savanna
Temperate Grassland
Chaparral
Desert
Tundra
Taiga
Temperate Deciduous Forest
Tropical Rain Forest
LAB: Gambling with biomes
Gambling with biomes
- Below is a list of locations around the world. Roll the dice and using your vast knowledge of biomes and the high tech globes on your desk, determine the biome and type of life you might find there.
- In the next round reverse the process with the biome list below, determining the locations around the globe.
Locations:
- Chile
- Zambia
- Philippines
- Oklahoma
- San Luis Obispo
- Germany
- Seattle
- Greenland
- Ontario Canada
- Tunisia
- North Pole
- Kamuela
Biomes:
- tundra
- boreal forest
- temperate rain forest
- temperate seasonal forest
- woodlands
- temperate grassland
- tropical rain forest
- savannah
- desert
- cold desert
- taiga
- tropical seasonal forest
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