UNIT 9 – Climate and Biomes

Group Members:Cody HoweReece TreuAlex GibbsTyler EllzeyAlex Cote

Alec Schlein

DAY 1 – UNIT 9

T of C: Vocabulary Overview and Climate Zones

KS: What is a grassland?

Vocabulary (underlined = key words)• Climate – the attitudes, standards, or environmental

conditions of a place• Biome – a complex biotic community characterized by

distinctive plant and animal species and maintained under the climatic conditions of the region

• Global Warming – an increase in the Earth’s average atmospheric temperature that causes corresponding changes in climate and that may result from the greenhouse effect

• Greenhouse Gas – any of the gases whose absorption of solar radiation is responsible for the greenhouse effect, including Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and Ozone.

Vocabulary cont’d.• Adaptation – the ability of a species to survive in a

particular ecological niche, especially because of alterations of form or behavior brought about through natural selection

• Isolation – a lack of contact between species• Tundra – level, treeless plains of the arctic regions• Desert – region starved of water and contains little or no

vegetation• Grassland – an area as a prairie, in which the natural

vegetation consists largely of perennial grasses• Rainforest – a tropical forest, usually of tall, densely

growing, broad-leaved evergreen trees in an area of high annual rainfall

Climate Zones

Unit 9WWK #1: The major Climate Zones

and their characteristics

Grasslands

• Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other plants, not including trees . Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica. In temperate latitudes , such as northwestern Europe and the Great Plains and California in North America , native grasslands are dominated by perennial bunch grass species, where as in warmer climates annual species form a greater component of the vegetation.

Tundra

• In physical geography , tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine tundra, and Antarctic tundra. In tundra, the vegetation is composed of dwarf shrubs, sedges and grasses, mosses, and lichens. Scattered trees grow in some tundra. The eco tone (or ecological boundary region) between the tundra and the forest is known as the tree line or timberline.

Desert

• A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than 400 millimeters (16 in). A common definition distinguishes between true deserts, which receive less than 250 millimeters (10 in) of average annual precipitation, and semi deserts or steppes, which receive between 250 millimeters (10 in) and 400 to 500 millimeters (16 to 20 in).

Rain Forest• Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall , with definitions based on a

minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm (68-78 inches). Monsoon trough , alternatively known as the inter tropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating the climatic conditions necessary for the Earth’s tropical rainforests.

• Around 40% to 75% of all biotic species are indigenous to the rainforests. It has been estimated that there may be many millions of species of plants, insects and micro organisms still undiscovered in tropical rainforests. Tropical rainforests have been called the "jewels of the Earth" and the "world's largest pharmacy ", because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered there. Rainforests are also responsible for 28% of the world's oxygen turnover, sometimes misnamed oxygen production, processing it through photosynthesis from carbon dioxide and consuming it through respiration.

• The undergrowth in a rainforest is restricted in many areas by the poor penetration of sunlight to ground level. This makes it easy to walk through undisturbed, mature rainforest. If the leaf canopy is destroyed or thinned, the ground beneath is soon colonized by a dense, tangled growth of vines, shrubs and small tress , called a jungle. There are two types of rainforest, tropical rainforest and temperate rainforest.

DAY 2 – UNIT 9

T of C: Climate Changes

KS: What do you think “thermohaline” means?

Climate Changes

Unit 9WWK #2: Climate changes and how

they are caused

What is climate change?

• The term is used to refer specifically to climate change caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes. In this sense, used especially in the context of environmental policy, the term climate change today is synonymous with anthropogenic global warming. Within scientific journals, however, global warming refers to surface temperature increases, while climate change includes global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas amounts will affect.

What causes it?Internal forcing mechanisms:• Natural changes in the components of earth's climate system and their interactions are the

cause of internal climate variability, or "internal forcings." Scientists generally define the five components of earth's climate system to include Atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere.

Ocean variability:• The ocean is a fundamental part of the climate system, some changes in it occurring at longer

timescales than in the atmosphere• Short-term fluctuations (years to a few decades) such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation,

the Pacific decadal oscillation, the North Atlantic oscillation, and the Arctic oscillation, represent climate variability rather than climate change. On longer time scales, alterations to ocean processes such as thermohaline circulation play a key role in redistributing heat by carrying out a very slow and extremely deep movement of water, and the long-term redistribution of heat in the world's oceans.

• The adjective thermohaline derives from thermo- referring to temperature and -haline referring to salt content, factors which together determine the density of sea water. (this is not a vocab word, this is here for your knowledge, AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE)

More causes

Human influences:• Of most concern in these anthropogenic factors is the increase

in CO2 (greenhouse gas) levels due to emissions from fossil fuel combustion, followed by aerosols and cement manufacture. Other factors, including land use, ozone depletion, animal agriculture and deforestation, are also of concern in the roles they play - both separately and in conjunction with other factors - in affecting climate, microclimate, and measures of climate variables.The climate that appears to be most affected by global warming and climate change is the arctic.

Climate and Biosphere

Unit 9WWK #3: Interactions of climate and

the biosphere

Radical Climate Change

• "By the end of the 21st century, large portions of the Earth's surface may experience climates not found at present, and some 20th-century climates may disappear.”

• Many of the world's local climates could be radically changed if global warming trends continue.

Understanding gases

• Carbon is critical to the biosphere and must continue cycling to support life on Earth.

• Understanding the major greenhouse gases is necessary to identify the current trends in atmospheric concentrations and climate change.

Greenhouse Gases• There are many different ways that the plants, animals, and other life on

our planet, affect climate. Some produce greenhouses gases that trap heat and aid global warming through the greenhouse effect, while others reduce the amount of greenhouse gases.

• Most of the things that release these gases are controlled by humans. Some are not in full control like plants.

• Plants: The greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is taken out of the atmosphere by plants as they make their food by photosynthesis. During the night, plants release some carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. They take much more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than they put in.

• Today, far more greenhouse gases are currently put into the atmosphere than taken out. This contributes to the greenhouse effect and global warming.

DAY 3 – UNIT 9

T of C: Ocean Temperature and how it affects climate change

KS: What drives climate change? (hint: a type of energy)

Ocean Temperature and its effect on climate change

Unit 9

WWK #4: How Ocean Temperature affects Climate

Heat Energy drives climate

• Interactions between Earth's atmosphere and oceans drive weather and climate patterns. Although these interactions and patterns are complex, they are also predictable.

• The Sun's energy is distributed unevenly across Earth's surface. Areas near our planet's equator absorb far more heat energy than areas near the poles. This uneven distribution of heat creates instability in Earth's atmosphere and oceans, and instability leads to movement of air and water.

Heat Energy drives climate cont’d.• Air in the atmosphere is warmed by heat radiating from

Earth's surface. The warmer the surface is, the warmer the air above it becomes. Because warm air is less dense than cold air, it tends to expand and rise, which lowers air pressure near the surface. Thus, regions of low air pressure generally form over warm water and land, while high-pressure regions form over cool surfaces. Such pressure differences create circular patterns of air called convection currents. In a convection current, warmer, low-pressure air rises and cooler, high-pressure air rushes in to fill the void. As the warm air rises, it loses heat in the upper atmosphere, cools, and sinks back toward Earth's surface, completing the circuit.

Heat Energy drives climate even more cont’d.

• The movement of air from high to low pressure in convection currents is responsible for most winds that blow across Earth's surface. The northern and southern hemispheres each have three zones in which winds blow predictably from east to west or west to east. On either side of the equator are zones dominated by the northeast and southeast trade winds, which blow strongly from east to west, and drive ocean currents in the same direction. The constant blowing of these strong winds pushes the warm surface water westward and causes a swell of warm water to build up in the western Pacific. In most years, the height of the sea surface near Indonesia is about 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) higher than off the coast of Ecuador, and the water temperature is warmer by about 8 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit). On the east side of the ocean, cold water rises up from great depths to replace the water that was pushed westward.

Effects on Climate• The interaction between global surface winds and ocean currents

creates complex, yet predictable climate patterns. For example, the heat carried westward by the warm ocean current causes powerful thunderstorms in northeastern Australia and eastern Indonesia. In contrast, the cold ocean surface on the east side of the Pacific gives rise to high pressure areas and low precipitation for much of the west coast of South America.

• About every three to four years, climate patterns in and around the Pacific Ocean change dramatically. The trade winds slacken and warm water that had been pushed to the west side of the Pacific is allowed to return eastward. This pattern, known as El Niño, typically causes droughts in Australia

DAY 4 – UNIT 9

T of C: Other things that affect climate & Lab Activity

KS: Name some examples of adaptations.

The effects of Latitude, Altitude, and the Geosphere on Climate

Unit 9WWK #5: How Latitude, Altitude, and

features of the Geosphere affect climate

Latitude

• Latitude affects climate in an area because it dictates the intensity and duration of sun exposure. As the Earth orbits the sun it also wobbles slightly on its axis. At times the Northern hemisphere is closer to the sun than the Southern hemisphere and at some times it is further from it. When an area is closer to the sun the days are longer and the sun's rays are stronger. This heats the climate. This is the reason that places experience seasonal variation in temperature. Those locations close to the equator, however, exist in a nearly constant state of summer because they always get relatively strong sunlight and have long days.

Altitude

• Altitude affects the climate because wind blows moisture from the ocean up the side of the mountain, the air gets cold and can't hold the moisture anymore so it rains/snows then the now dried air goes down the other side of the mountain and it normally creates a desert or something dry on the other side.

The Geosphere• The geosphere consists of the soils, the sediments, rocks of

the Earth's land masses, the continental and oceanic crust and ultimately the interior of the Earth itself. These parts of the geosphere each play a role in the regulation and variation of global climate, to a greater or lesser extent, over varying time scales.

• Variations in global climate over tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of years are due to modulations within the interior of the Earth Changes in the shape of ocean basins and the size of continental mountains may influence the energy transfers within and between the coupled components of the climate system.

The Geosphere cont’d.

• Volcanism, although driven by the slow movement of the tectonic plates, occurs regularly on much shorter timescales. Volcanic eruptions replenish the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, removed by the biosphere, and emit considerable quantities of dust and aerosols. Volcanic activity can therefore affect the energy budget and regulation of the global climate system the continental and oceanic crust and ultimately the interior of the Earth itself. These parts of the geosphere each play a role in the regulation and variation of global climate, to a greater or lesser extent, over varying time scales.

DAY 5 – UNIT 9

T of C: Adaptations & Vocabulary Quiz

KS: Define a vocab word for us.

Adaptations

Unit 9WWK #6: Adaptations of living things

and their biomes

Adaptations

• Over time, if the conditions are harmful to a species, then it will adapt to the environment. But, in isolation, many adaptations won’t be adopted because there is little danger.

• The ability for a species to survive is how other animals surpass others to the top.

Biomes

• Biomes are places on the earth with the same type of animals.

• The vary through out the earth, and they often get called ecosystems.

How Animals adapt

• An animal has to adapt to be able to survive in its environment.

• Adaptations can help the animal in multiple ways

• It can help them hunt better, can keep them warmer, or even keep the blended in from their predator.

DAY 6 – UNIT 9

T of C: Test Day!

KS: Did you study?

Sources

• http://www.ucmp.berkely.edu/exhibits/biomes• The Encyclopedia Britannica • Biomes: http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag5ATGEplbU• Global Warming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGIllMbG22Y