Climate Zones and Biomes There are 8 defined biomes Permanent ice Tundra Boreal Forest Temperate deciduous forest Temperate rainforest Grassland Desert Tropical rainforest What is a biome? a major biotic community characterized by the dominant forms of plant life and the prevailing climate wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn Canada only has 7 of these biomes. Which biome do you think does not exist in Canada and why? Tropical rainforest because the climate is not wet and hot enough to support its characteristic vegetation Which biome is found in Kingston? temperate deciduous forest Another way to categorize regions in the biosphere is with ecozones. Canada has 15 different terrestrial ( ) ecozones and 5 aquatic ( ) ecozones. Kingston is part of the Mixedwood Plains ecozone. http://canadianbiodiversity.mcgill.ca/english/ecozones/ecozones.htm Biomes and ecozones are similar in that they consider temperature, precipitation, types of plants and animals and their biodiversity. An ecozone also considers its geographical characteristics (sedimentary vs. Canadian shield) Ecoregions and ecodistricts are a way to further reduce various regions in classification. There are over 200 different ecoregions in Canada. An example of an ecoregion would be the Lake Temiscaming Lowland Jan 16 10:21 PM 1
Climographs a visual representation of climate for a city What is a Climograph: A climograph plots the monthly average temperature and precipitation for some location. It provides a quick way of characterizing the climate of a particular place. is shown by the bar graph. is shown by a line. Which place would you rather visit for a holiday? Which month would you like to visit? World Climographs Roll over a station to see its annual temperature and precipitation patterns. Think about how climate controls can be used to explain these patterns http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/lutgens3/medialib/abcontrol/pages/question.html Climographs for different cities http://www.drought.unl.edu/whatis/climographsinternationalmetric.htm Raw data for different world cities Jun 6 2:27 PM 2
Rules for making Climographs adapted from http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/science9/saskenviro/lesson02.html 1. Label the graph with the appropriate name for the community you are doing. 2. Plot the temperature is on the left and the precipitation is on the right. If you are doing more than one graph, use the same scale for all your climographs. This will allow you to properly compare them. A temperature range of 20 o C to 40 o C and a precipitation scale from 0 to 300 mm works for most climographs. (tropical rainforests receive 260 cm annually an average of 217 mm per month) 3. Place the month between the lines by labelling J for January. is plotted with bars, temperature with points and lines. 4. The temperature point is plotted in the middle of the bar to reflect the average or mean temperature for the month. Using a straight edge, connect each of the points to create a line graph. Using the graphs provided, create climographs for each of the following cities in Canada and around the world Cities in Canada Vancouver Winnipeg Halifax Month January 153.6 3.3 19.7 17.8 149.2 6.0 February 123.1 4.8 14.9 13.6 114.4 5.7 March 114.3 6.6 21.5 6.1 134.5 1.4 April 84 9.2 31.9 4.0 118.3 4.0 May 67.9 12.5 58.8 12.0 109.7 9.8 June 54.8 15.2 89.5 17.0 98.3 15.0 July 39.6 17.5 70.6 19.6 102.2 18.6 August 39.1 17.7 75.1 18.5 92.7 18.4 September 53.5 14.6 52.3 12.3 103.6 14.1 October 112.6 10.1 36.0 5.3 128.7 8.3 November 181.0 6.1 25.0 5.3 146.0 3.1 December 175.7 3.5 18.5 14.4 154.8 2.9 Cities around the world Perth Australia Calcutta, India Belem, Brazil Month January 9.1 24.2 16.8 20.3 366.5 26.5 February 15.3 24.6 22.9 23.3 417.5 26.4 March 15.3 22.7 32.8 27.9 436.2 26.4 April 41.1 19.2 47.7 30.7 360.0 26.3 May 103.8 16.0 101.7 31.2 304.4 27.0 June 169.3 13.9 259.9 30.3 140.2 26.9 July 162.5 13.0 331.8 29.2 152.1 26.7 August 119.5 13.2 328.8 29.1 131.1 26.9 September 71.4 14.5 295.9 29.0 140.8 26.9 October 46.5 16.3 151.3 28.0 116.1 26.9 November 25.4 19.1 17.2 24.4 111.87 27.1 December 11.1 21.8 7.4 20.7 216.4 27.1 Jun 7 8:50 AM 3
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Attachments ecozones.webloc