GEOGRAPHY

CHAPTER-5:LIFE IN THE TEMPERATURE

ZONES
PRESENTED BY: MS.RATNA
CONTENT

• Vegetation Zones

✔ Equatorial rainforests
✔ Temperate Grasslands
✔ Hot Deserts
✔ Tundras
GLOSSARY

• Canopy: a kind of roof made in forests by leaves and branches of trees

• Hardwood: hard, strong wood from trees such as mahogany.
• Sledge: a small vehicle, drawn by reindeer or huskies, used for travelling over snow.
LIFE IN SOME OF THE VEGETATION ZONES FOUND IN
EACH TEMPERATURE ZONE
• TEMPERTURE ZONES

✔ TORRID ZONE
o EQUATORIAL RAINFOREST
o HOT DESERTS

✔ TEMPERATE ZONE
o TEMPERATE GRASSLANDS

✔ FRIGID ZONE
o TUNDRA
VEGETATION ZONES

• Equatorial Rain Forest(tropical rainforest): located on both sides of the Equator; falls in
Torrid Zone.
⮚ Climate: Hot and humid with heavy rainfall
✔ Very hot climate with very little variation in temperature.
✔ No variation in seasons-weather is hot and wet all year round.
 VEGETATION

⮚ dense forests containing

evergreen trees(hardwood –
mahogany, ebony and rosewood;
also rubber and cinchona)
 WILDLIFE:

• It supports the greatest variety of living

organisms.
• includes elephants, jaguars, anacondas ,
proboscis monkeys, toucans, red-eyed tree
frogs
 PEOPLE:
• mainly Pygmies of Congo
(Africa)and Dayaks of
Borneo(Southeast Asia near
Indonesia).
• Pygmies live in houses made
with sticks and leaves.
• Hunter- gatherers
• Dayaks live in large
communal dwellings called
longhouses(locally known as
betang or lamin built along
river banks)
 HOT DESERTS(SUBTROPICAL DESERTS)

• Climate: very hot and dry during the day and cold during night.

✔ Experiences extreme climate(day-54 °C ).

✔ Receives very little rainfall throughout the year.
✔ The Sahara Desert and Kalahari Desert (Africa).
✔ The Thar Desert in India and Pakistan.
✔ The Great Australian Desert in Australia are hot deserts.
 VEGETATION
• Very few plants , trees and
shrubs grow in deserts due to
lack of water.
• Coarse grass and thorny
bushes are found.
• Cactus, acacia and date
palms.
 WILDLIFE

• Includes foxes, hedgehogs,

moles, snakes, beetles,
camels, hyenas and scorpions
.
 PEOPLE

• The Bedouins are a group of nomadic people who inhabit the Arabian
Peninsula(The Arabian Peninsula includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen, as well as the southern
portions of Iraq and Jordan. The largest of these is Saudi Arabia. In the classical
era, the southern portions of modern-day Syria, Jordan, and the Sinai Peninsula
were also considered parts of Arabia ) and North Africa.
• The Tuaregs are another group of nomadic people who inhabit the western parts
of the Sahara Desert(is a desert on the African continent).
 TEMPERATE GRASSLANDS(AREAS WITH
GRASSES AS DOMINANT VEGETATION)
⮚ Climate(cooler and drier than areas in the
Torrid Zone): hot summer and cold winter in
Northern Hemisphere but comparatively
milder in Southern Hemisphere.
⮚ Vegetation: tall trees are absent and
grasses are found.
1. The climate of the prairies(North America)
is an extreme type-hot summers and cold
winters.
o Rainfall is moderate, with about 88cm of
annual rainfall.
2. The steppes(Eurasia) have temperate climate, with warm to hot summers
and cold winters.
o These are very dry and usually found between a desert and a forest.
3. The climate in the pampas(South America) is temperate .
o The summers are humid and warm.
o Winters are mostly mild.
o Frequent cold waves .
o Amount of rainfall varies throughout the year.

4. The downs(Australia) experience moderate climate with maximum summer

temperature (from 28° C to 35°C).
o Winter temperature from 10 °C to 20 °C.
o Receives adequate rainfall throughout the year.
 WILDLIFE:

• The wildlife of Temperate

Grassland includes rabbits,
hare, rats, deer, prairie dog,
kangaroo, koalo and
antelopes.
⮚ People: mainly Khoikhois from the
velds (Africa)and Kirghiz people
from the Central Asian steppes are
some of the nomadic tribes living in
the grasslands.
⮚ They herd cattle and sheep.
 TUNDRAS

• Tundras are very cold and dry

or treeless zones found in the
high latitudes primarily in
Alaska, northern Canada,
Russia, Greenland, Iceland and
northern Scandinavia(Norway
and Sweden, Finland and
Denmark.)
 CLIMATE

• The Tundra, while primarily located around the North Pole, is really a defined
climate that exists in several other locations on the earth. When people talk about
“the tundra” they are referring mostly to the unique ecosystem that exists around
the Arctic Circle, but the tundra actually includes areas of Alaska, Canada and
Antarctic. The tundra climate spans from most of Greenland to parts of Alaska,
northern Canada, and northern Russia.
• The summers are short and winters are very long and cold.
• The Polar regions experience six months of continuous daytime and six months of
continuous night.
 VEGETATION

▪ Due to the cold climate and permanently frozen soil called permafrost( is a
permanently frozen layer on or under Earth's surface. It consists of soil, gravel, and
sand, usually bound together by ice ), there is no vegetation in this zone.
▪ The Tundra region is characterised by alternate freezing and
thawing(To change from a frozen solid to a liquid by gradual warming) of the ground.
▪ During the thawing season , that is , snow-melting season, mosses and lichens and
scanty grass grow.
▪ Mosses are defined as simple plants with the most basic of root structures, leaves,
and stems. Lichens are a very different type of creature, called a composite
organism. Not just a plant, lichens are actually a single entity created from a joining
of algae and fungus.
MOSSES AND LICHENS
ARCTIC FLOWERS
 WILDLIFE

• Fish and insects, penguins, snow owls,

albatrosses , seal, walruses,reindeer,
polar bears, foxes and wolves are found
here.
• Thick skin and a heavy coat of hair
protect these animals from severe cold.
PEOPLE

▪ Life in Tundra is very hard and difficult.

Very few people live in these regions.
▪ Parts of Greenland, Canada, the United
States and Russia are inhabited by people
called Inuit. They live in houses called
igloos.
• The Lapps of the northern Scandinavia (Denmark,, Norway and Sweden) and the
Samoyeds, Yakuts and Chukchis of Siberia(Russia) are some other groups of people
who live in this zone.
MAP OF SHOWING TUNDRA REGION
TEXTBOOK EXERCISE

• Question 1: Where are the equatorial rainforests located?

• Answer: The equatorial rainforests are located on both sides of the
Equator in the continents of Africa, South America and Asia.
• Question2: What type of climate is there in equatorial regions? Name
some of the trees found in the equatorial rainforests.
• Answer: The Equatorial regions experience very hot climate with very
little variation in temperature. The trees found in these regions are
hardwood trees such as mahogany, ebony and rosewood; also rubber
and cinchona.
• Question 3: Where are the hot deserts located and what is the
climatic condition like? Name the two nomadic tribes who live in
hot deserts.
• Answer: Deserts lie near to the tropics of that is near to the
Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. This zone experiences
extreme climate, with day temperature reaching as high as54°
C.It receives very little rainfall throughout the year. The Bedouins
and Tuaregs are the two nomadic tribes that live in hot deserts.
• Question:Write a note on the prairies.
• Answer: The Prairies are the temperate grasslands of North
America. The have an extreme climate with hot summers and cold
winters. They receive moderate with about 88cm of annual rainfall.
• Question5: Where are the Inuit found? What transport do they use?
• Answer: The Inuit inhabits part of Greenland, Canada, the United
States and Russia. They use sledges, drawn by reindeers or huskies,
as means of transport . Modern snow scooters are also used in some
regions.