The Different Biomes
Characterized by low and uneven levels of precipitation.
What is the desert biome?
This cool phase of the ENSO system brings warmer winter temps than normal in the South and drought like conditions.
What is La Nina?
The changes in temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind speed, and cloud cover over a period of hours or days.
What is weather?
These are the mass movements of surface water driven by winds and shaped by landforms.
What are ocean currents?
Estuaries, coastal marshes, mangrove forest, and coral reefs make this up.
What is the coastal zone?
This is mainly located in the interior of continents and is in areas that are too moist for deserts and too wet for forests.
What is the grasslands biome?
This is one of the greatest threats to terrestrial ecosystems.
What is unsustainable agriculture?
A pattern of atmospheric conditions over many years
What is climate?
This is the cyclical climate pattern that is caused by the weakening of trade winds every 3-7 years.
What is El Nino?
This is the fresh water that flows or is stored in bodies of water on Earth's surface.
What is surface water?
This landform makes up roughly 1/4 of Earth's land surface and contributes to biome characteristics.
What are mountains?
What is urban development?
The method in which heat and precipitation are unevenly distributed across planet Earth.
What are wind and ocean currents?
-Depletion of groundwater, land disturbance and pollution from mineral extraction, and large cities are all major human impacts upon this specific biome.
What are deserts?
This is the surface water that flows in lakes, ponds, and wetlands.
What is runoff?
The area between two ecosystems/biomes that displays high levels of biodiversity.
What is the transition zone?
This is when solar energy is absorbed by greenhouse gases, which causes the warming of the lower atmosphere.
What is the greenhouse effect?
What is the coriolis effect?
These cover roughly 71% of Earth's surface and hold roughly 98% of Earth's water.
What are oceans?
This is the land area that delivers runoff, sediments, and dissolved substances to freshwater systems.
What is a watershed?
1. Incoming solar energy
2. Earth's rotation
3. Global patterns of air and water movement
4. Atmospheric gases
5. Earth's surface features
What are the factors that influence climate?
These delicate ecosystems are struggling as they face human impacts of excess soil runoff, rising water temperatures and acidification.
What are coral reefs?
Trade winds, easterlies, westerlies
What are the prevailing winds?
This factor largely determines the biodiversity of saltwater environments.
What is salinity (saltiness)?
This is an oceanic result of excess carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.
What is the rising levels of acidity in ocean waters?