C10 ecozones and climographs.notebook
June 07, 2011
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
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C10 ecozones and climographs.notebook
June 07, 2011
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. Precipitation is shown by the bar graph. Temperature 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
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C10 ecozones and climographs.notebook
June 07, 2011
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 ­20oC to 40oC 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. Precipitation 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
Halifax
Winnipeg
Vancouver
Mean
Temperature
(oC)
Month
Mean
Mean
Precipitation
Precipitation
Precipitation
Temperature
Temperature
(mm)
(mm)
(mm)
(oC)
(oC)
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
Belem, Brazil
Calcutta, India
Perth Australia
Mean
Temperature
(oC)
Month
Mean
Mean
Precipitation
Precipitation
Precipitation
Temperature
Temperature
(mm)
(mm)
(mm)
(oC)
(oC)
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 7­8:50 AM
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C10 ecozones and climographs.notebook
June 07, 2011
Jun 7­9:09 AM
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Attachments
ecozones.webloc