Download Chapter 4 Highlights Global Climates and Biomes

Chapter 4 Highlights
Global Climates and Biomes
Denise Thompson
2014 AP Environmental Science
Warm Up
• Copy this week’s learning targets and agenda
• Don’t forget to bring in bottles for the ecocolumn lab!
• Turn in completed reading guides
Key Ideas
• Explain the forces that drive global circulation
patterns
• Describe factors that influence climate
• Predict how changing climate could effect
major biomes
Climate
• The Earth’s atmosphere and oceans circulate
• Patterns of circulation => weather and climate
• Changes is circulation patterns => cause
change in weather and climate
• Weather is mostly the result of activity in the
lowest layer of the atmosphere called the
Troposphere
Atmosphere
• Circulates due to uneven heating caused by the
Earth’s tilt
• Hotter air rises, cooler air sinks
• Warm air holds more water than cold air
• Where ever there is warm, moist, rising
air….you produce precipitation
• Cool, dry, sinking air causes evaporation
Atmosphere
Oceans
• Circulate due to
differences in heating
AND differences in
salinity
• The science word for
that is Thermohaline
Circulation
• Cold, high saline
water sinks
• Warm, low saline
water rises
El Nino/ La Nina
• Caused when the trade winds weaken
• Allowing warm water to flow back towards the eastern
pacific
• Slows upwelling along the West coast of North and
South America
• Decreases the amount of nutrients available to coastal
oceanic ecosystems (bad for fish, plants, reefs etc)
Terrestrial Biomes and Climate
Close to ocean decreases the temperature range
Oceans
Far from ocean increases the temperature range
Wind
Direction
Air blowing off of large bodies of water are moister and result in
more precipitation
Air blowing off of continents is drier and has less precipitation
Places closer to the equator are warmer
Latitude
Places closer to the poles are cooler
Places that are at higher elevations are cooler
Elevation
Places that are at lower elevations are warmer
May also cause differences in precipitation due to “rain shadow”
Aquatic Biomes
• Depend on salinity, depth and water flow
High water flow
Low water flow
High Salinity
Open Ocean
Shallow= photic zone
Deep = aphotic zone
Shallow= Coral Reefs
Deep = ocean trench
Medium Salinity
Estuary
Intertidal Zone
Deep = Mangrove
Swamp
Shallow = Salt Marsh
Low Salinity (fresh
water)
Stream or River
Deep=Lakes and Ponds
Shallow = wetland
Biome Matching Activity
• Analyze each of the 6
climatograms
• Decide which biome’s
climate is represented
• Share amongst your
table group….only one
climatogram for each
biome
• Exit Pass—
• Paste your climatogram
to a blank sheet of
paper
• This climatogram
represents
______________ biome
because…..
– Give at least two reasons
Grassland/Savannah
http://morriscourse.com/elements_of_ecology
/images/biome_map_trop_savanna.jpg