LEMPOSA, BIOMES, & MAPS

High, Mid & Low Latitude Zones High Latitudes Mid Latitudes High Latitude Low Latitudes 2

Biomes found in… High Latitudes: Subarctic, Tundra, Icecap Mid : Mediterranean, Humid Subtropical, Humid Continental, Marine West Coast Low : Tropical Wet/Dry, Tropical Wet Various : Highland, Semiarid, Desert 3

The 7 major factors that affect climate… L.E.M.P.O.S.A.L.E.M.P.O.S.A.

LATITUDE The closer you get to the equator, the warmer it gets. so…the closer you get to the North or South poles the ________ it gets. 5

ELEVATION The higher you go in the mountains, the colder it gets. 6

MOUNTAIN BARRIERS (AKA Orographic/Rain Shadow Effect) 1.Winds blow across the ocean & push moisture inland. 2.Moisture cloud reaches the mountains, gets “popped” by the mountain top & rains on the coastal side (ex: California & the Sierra Nevada Mtns.) 3.By the time this cloud reaches the other side of the mountains, the air is dry = no rain. 7

PROXIMITY TO WATER Land heats & cools more quickly than water. Closer an area is to a large body of water, = smaller the difference in temperature (ex: California Coast) Farther away from water = greater difference in temperature (ex Kansas). 8

OCEAN CURRENTS Warm currents circulate from the equator, cold currents from the poles. NOTE: No need to write this in YELLOW…just read to help you remember/understand this idea: Ok, so we know that if you are located at approximately the same lines of LATITUDE then you should have similar climates, right? Well…The UK & Europe are on the same line of latitude as Canada. Do they experience the same climate as Canada? NO…because of the WARM OCEAN CURRENTS that surround the UK & Europe. Let’s explain… A warm current called the North Atlantic Drift (see diagram on right) flows up from the equator and blows across the water and keeps Europe warmer than it should be at that latitude. See?? What about the Atacama Desert in Chile? Located on the coast, but one of the driest places on earth… 9

Storms Temporary and severe changes in weather. Storms Do not necessarily affect climate, but they do occur regularly in certain parts of the world & are associated with certain climates. 10

ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE High Pressure = fair weather Low Pressure = wet weather 11

ROTATION = 1 Day Takes the earth 24 hours to make one complete rotation on it’s AXIS. REVOLUTION = 1 Year. Takes the earth 365 ¼ days to make one complete revolution around the SUN. 12

Map Projections Peters Mercator: 13

Which way is up??? 14

Mercator Projection Landmasses greatly distorted in order to keep water features accurate. There were no planes, trains, and automobiles back then. So world maps were made with shipping routes in mind. 15

Peters Projection Land surface size represented more accurately, but makes landmasses appear much longer than they actually are. Look at Greenland vs. Africa below compared to the Mercator map (previous slide). On Peters, Greenland is shown more accurately & is accurately represented as smaller than Africa. How would Africa look if African mapmakers had made some of our first maps rather than Europeans?? 16

Latitude/Parallel Longitude/Meridian Equator – the main belt…zero line of latitude Prime Meridian – the main buttons…zero line of longitude (East and West) (North and South) 17

Tropics of Cancer and Knee Capricorn 18

International Date Line Hour 24 Hour 1 19

TYPES OF MAPS: Political Maps: Show borders of nations, states, counties etc… Physical Feature Maps: Shows physical features. Water, mountains, plains etc…. 20

THEMATIC MAPS 21