Climate is weather, rainfall, cloud cover, temperature, growing season, daylight. Photo courtesy Naomi Woods. |
| Climate affects forests and determines where they will grow and what species will inhabit them. Forests simply can't live where there isn't enough rainfall or where the temperatures are too low: these areas are taken over by desert and alpine tundra. Climate is the reason that fir trees don't grow in the Amazon, and why jaguars don't live in the boreal forests. The earth's climate is always changing, but in the past it has always changed slowly enough to allow forests to adapt. And just as climate affects the forest, the forest to a certain extent affects the climate. |
climate -- page 1 of 5
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
related topics
[water] [tropical forests] [boreal forests] [climate change]
view the condensed version of the climate article for faster printing/reading
return to the forest importance article