Climate

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continental climate

Back 1

a relatively dry climate with very hot summers and very cold winters, characteristic of the central parts of Asia and North America.

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inter tropical convergence zone

Back 2

a narrow zone near the equator where northern and southern air masses converge, typically producing low atmospheric pressure.

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maritime climate

Back 3

connected with the sea, especially in relation to seafaring commercial or military activity.

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biodiversity

Back 4

the variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.

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biome

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a large naturally occurring community of flora and fauna occupying a major habitat, e.g., forest or tundra.

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chaparral

Back 6

vegetation consisting chiefly of tangled shrubs and thorny bushes.

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desert

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A large, dry, barren region, usually having sandy or rocky soil and little or no vegetation.

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ice cap

Back 8

a covering of ice over a large area, especially on the polar region of a planet.

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microclimate

Back 9

the climate of a very small or restricted area, especially when this differs from the climate of the surrounding area.

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permafrost

Back 10

a thick subsurface layer of soil that remains frozen throughout the year, occurring chiefly in polar regions.

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savanna

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a grassy plain in tropical and subtropical regions, with few trees

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steppe

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a large area of flat unforested grassland in southeastern Europe or Siberia.

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taiga

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the sometimes swampy coniferous forest of high northern latitudes, especially that between the tundra and steppes of Siberia and North America.

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tropical rainforest

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a tropical forest, usually of tall, densely growing, broad-leaved evergreen trees in an area of high annual rainfall. Also called tropical rain forest.

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Tundra

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a vast, flat, treeless Arctic region of Europe, Asia, and North America in which the subsoil is permanently frozen.

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El Niño

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an irregularly occurring and complex series of climatic changes affecting the equatorial Pacific region and beyond every few years, characterized by the appearance of unusually warm, nutrient-poor water off northern Peru and Ecuador, typically in late December.

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global warming

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a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants.

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La Niña

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a cooling of the water in the equatorial Pacific that occurs at irregular intervals and is associated with widespread changes in weather patterns complementary to those of El Niño, but less extensive and damaging in their effects.

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Milankovitch cycles

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A Milankovitch cycle is a cyclical movement related to the Earth's orbit around the Sun. There are three of them: eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession

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slash-and-burn agriculture

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Slash-and-burn agriculture, or fire–fallow cultivation, is afarming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. (Preparing fields by deforestation is called assarting.) In subsistence agriculture, slash-and-burntypically uses little technology.

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Sunspot

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a spot or patch appearing from time to time on the sun's surface, appearing dark by contrast with its surroundings.