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WG Unit 2
Physical Geography
Question | Answer |
---|---|
A flat piece of land at a high elevation | Plateau |
4 elements of climate | Latitude, elevation, wind, proximity to water |
3 characteristics of climate | temperature, precipitation, season |
Erosion | Wearing down of matter on earth's surface, creates valleys |
Causes of erosion | Water, wind, glaciers (ice) |
Deposition | Laying down sediment (dirt, rocks, etc), creates beaches and alluvial plains |
Ring of Fire | Area of Seismic activity around Pacific, lots of volcanoes and earthquakes |
3 climate zones | High Latitudes, Middle Latitudes, Low Latitudes |
High Latitudes | 66.5 to 90 degrees North or South, Subarctic, Tundra, Polar Ice Cap |
Middle Latitudes | 23.5 degrees North to 66.5 degrees North, 23.5 degrees South to 66.5 degrees South, Temperate, Marine West Coast, Mediterranean, Humid Sub-tropical, Humid Continental, Arid, Semiarid, Highland |
Low Latitudes | 23.5 degrees S to 23.5 degrees N; Between Tropic of Capricorn and Tropic of Cancer; Tropical Wet, Tropical Wet and Dry, Arid, Semiarid, Highland |
Tropical Wet | Hot and wet throughout the year; Rainforest; Amazon Basin, Congo Basin, Asia, Australia |
Tropical Wet and Dry | High year round temperatures; Dry winters wet summers; Savanna, Africa, Central and South America, Asia, Australia |
Marine West Coast | Plenty of rainfall, lots of vegetation, NW Europe, NW United States |
Humid Sub-tropical | Look out your window, you are living in it |
Humid Continental | Northerly continental or inland locations (US, Europe, Russia); longer snowy winters with shorter and cooler summers; evergreen forests or grasslands (temperate steppe) |
Taiga | Cold forest of evergreens at a high latitude (Russia, Canada, Alaska) |
Tundra | Just below the polar ice cap, flat plain, with little vegetation, short summers, long, cold winters |
Hurricane | Tropical Storm in the Atlantic |
Typhoon | Tropical Storm in the Pacific |
Cyclone | Tropical Storm in the Indian Ocean |
Monsoon | Seasonal winds in South & Southeast Asia, cause wet or dry weather |
Irrigation | Diverting water from a river or stream, usually for farming. |
Aral Sea | A small sea or large lake in Central Asia, drying out due to irrigation |
Colorado River | River in United States Southwest, drying out due to irrigation |
Desertification | Drying out on an area, converting to an arid region, happening in the Sahel |
The Sahel | a region, a belt of territory across Africa between the Sahara Desert and wetter areas |
Polders | Land reclaimed from the sea by building dikes and dams |
Canal | A MANMADE waterway between two large natural waterways, examples: Panama Canal or Suez Canal |
Arable | Land that can be farmed because of fertility, climate or landform or a combination of these |
Terraced farming | Manmade fields in the shape of steps cut into a mountain or hillside |
Famine | A scarcity of food in a region |
Desertification | Physical process of converting fertile land into a desert |
Land Degradation | Land that is less productive than in the past, quality has diminished due to human & geographic factors |