Chapter 7 Review Climate and Biodiversity

1. Chapter 7 ReviewClimate and Biodiversity By: Zachary Cox

2. Ch. 7 Contents 7-1: What Factors Influence Climate 7-2: How does Climate Affect the Nature and Location of Biomes 7-3: How Have We Affected the World’s Terrestrial Ecosystem 3 Big Ideas

3. 7-1: What Factors Influence Climate The Earth has many climates Greenhouse Gases warm the lower Atmosphere Earth’s Surface Features Affect Local Climates

4. 7-1: The Earth has many Climates • Weather – A set of physical conditions of the lower atmosphere such as temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind speed, cloud cover, and other factors in a given area over a period of hours or days • Climate – Which is an area’s general pattern of atmospheric conditions over periods of at least three decades and up to thousands of years • 3 Major Factors that determine how air circulates • Uneven heating of the earth’s surface by the sun • Rotation of the Earth on its Axis • Properties of water, air, and land • Ocean Currents – Prevailing winds blowing over the oceans produce mass movements of surface water

5. 7-1: Greenhouse Gases Warm the Lower Atmosphere • Greenhouse Gases - allow mostly visible light and some infrared radiation and ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun to pass through the atmosphere. • Examples of Greenhouse Gases are: • Water Vapor • Carbon Dioxide • Methane • Nitrous Oxide • Natural Greenhouse Effect - natural warming effect of the troposphere

6. 7-1: Earth’s Surface Features Affect Local Climates • Heat is absorbed and released more slowly by water than by land • Rain Shadow Effect - Semiarid or arid conditions on the leeward side of a high mountain • Cities create distinct microclimates. Building materials absorb heat and buildings block wind flow. • This causes cities to have higher temperatures, and lower wind speeds than the surrounding countryside

7. 7-2: How does climate affect the nature and location of biomes Climate Helps to determine where organisms can live There are 3 Major types of Deserts There are 3 major types of Grasslands There are 3 major types of Forests Mountains play important Ecological Roles

8. 7-2: Climate Helps to determine where organisms can live • Biomes - Large terrestrial regions, each characterized by certain types of climate and dominant plant life • Ex. Are: • Desert • Polar Ice • Artic Tundra • Temperate Rainforest • Differences in climate can lead to the formation of tropical, temperate, and polar deserts, grasslands, and forests

9. 7-2: There are 3 Major types of Deserts • Deserts: • Annual precipitation is low and often scattered unevenly throughout the year • Hot during the day and cold during the night • Low vegetation • Tropical deserts (i.e. Sahara) are hot and dry most of the year • In Temperate deserts (i.e. Sonoran), daytime temperatures are high in summer and low in winter and there is more precipitation than in tropical deserts • In cold deserts (i.e. Gobi), vegetation is sparse, winters are cold, summers are warm or hot, and precipitation is low

10. 7-2: There are 3 major types of Grasslands • Grasslands occur mostly in the interiors of continents in areas that are too moist for deserts to form and too dry for forests to grow • Permafrost - Underground soil in which captured water stays frozen for more than 2 consecutive years • Cold grasslands, or arctic tundra (Russian for “marshy plain”), lie south of the arctic polar ice cap. Winters are long with short days, and scant precipitation falls mostly as snow • In a temperate grassland, winters can be bitterly cold, summers are hot and dry, and annual precipitation is fairly sparse and falls unevenly throughout the year • Tropical grasslands usually has warm temperatures year-round and alternating dry and wet seasons

11. 7-2: There are 3 major types of Forests • Forests are lands dominated by trees • Tropical rain forests are found near the equator, where hot, moisture-laden air rises and dumps its moisture • Temperate deciduous forests grow in areas with moderate average temperatures that change significantly with the seasons. Temperate Forests have long, warm summers, cold but not too severe winters, and abundant precipitation, often spread fairly evenly throughout the year • Evergreen Coniferous Forests are found just south of the arctic tundra in northern regions across North America, Asia, and Europe and above certain altitudes in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges of the United States • Temperate rain forestsare found in scattered coastal temperate areas with ample rainfall or moisture from dense ocean fogs

12. 7-2: Mountains play important Ecological Roles • Mountains are places where dramatic changes in altitude, slope, climate, soil, and vegetation take place over a very short distance • Mountains contain the majority of the world’s forests, which are habitats for much of the planet’s terrestrial biodiversity • Mountains also store water. In the winter, it stores the snow and ice. In the summer, the water is released into the streams

13. 7-3: How Have We Affected the World’s Terrestrial Ecosystems Humans Have Disturbed Most of the Earths Land

14. 7-3: Humans Have Disturbed Most of the Earths Land • About 62% of the world’s major terrestrial ecosystems are being degraded or used unsustainably • If we increase the stresses on some of these biomes, then we would have a massive loss of biodiversity. • It would also reduce the vegetation needed to remove some of the excess carbon dioxide that we add to the atmosphere • This would release more CO2 into the atmosphere

15. 3 Big Ideas • Differences in climate, based mostly on long-term differences in average temperature and precipitation, largely determine the types and locations of the earth’s deserts, grasslands, and forests • The earth’s terrestrial systems provide important ecological and economic services. • Human activities are degrading and disrupting many of the ecological and economic services provided by the earth’s terrestrial ecosystems