Transcript AMAZONIAN RAINFOREST

AMAZON RAINFOREST
Start to finish
Amazon river facts
• Starts in the Peruvian
Andes
• 4080 miles in length
• Most water comes
from snow
• Averges 9 feet of rain
water per year
2.5 million different insects
Pink Dolphin
Canopy
• THE TOP,
OVERLAPPING
BRANCHES AND
LEAVES OF RFOREST
• 70-90% OF ALL LIFE
• DRIER /HOTTER
DURING DAY
• ANIMALS MUST ADAPT
TRIBUTARIES
• IS A STREAM OR RIVER
THAT FEEDS THE MAIN
PART OF THE RIVER
PEOPLE OF THE AMAZON
• VERY FEW
INDIGENOUS
PEOPLE WHO
FOLLOW THEIR OLD
TRADITIONS STILL
REMAIN
• MODERN TIMES
HAVE HIT THE
AMAZON??
BENEFITS OF THE RAINFORESTS
• “Lungs of the earth”
-provides 20% of
Earth’s oxygen
• Regulates Earth’s climate
• Home to ½ of Earth’s
plant & animal species
• Offers cures for diseases
WHAT’S HAPPENING TO IT?
-1.5 acres per second being destroyed
• Logging
WHY?
-furniture and paper goods
• Housing
-to relieve overcrowded cities
• Natural Resources
-iron ore, oil
• Farming / ranching
-slash-and-burn clearing
2.
1.
SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE
• Growing just enough food for your family to
survive
-little left over to sell
PRICE OF DESTRUCTION
• Loss of cures for illness / disease
• Loss of plant & animal
species
• Global warming
• Destruction of native tribes
SOLUTIONS
• Educate people about the rainforest
• Debt for nature
swap
• Sustainable
Development
=
La Nina and El Nino
• La Nina is the normal
situation
Consider the Pacific as
being in a rectangle, with
a left and a right side. On
the left is Indonesia and
Australia and NZ. On the
right is South America.
This is so much fun!!
•
Cold water comes up from the depths
of Antarctica and travels up beside
Peru. It brings nutrients up to the
surface and the fishing is good. In the
air above is warmer equatorial high
pres-sure. It pushes down onto the
waters, onto the cooler currents
emerging from below. When you push
down on water in the bath it slides out
from under your hand, and in the bath
having nowhere else to go, it causes a
ripple wave which goes to the other
end of the bath. It is the same with the
Pacific. Higher pressure goes to lower
pressure. With the land of S and N
America blocking the right side, the
current is forced (by the high pressure
in the air) to go LEFT.
More fun!
• As the water goes left, so
does the air. Why?
Because the surface of
the ocean is joined to the
bottom of the air. Now the
water is an easterly
current going to the west,
and so is the air, and this
produces easterly
winds. Easterly winds
bring moisture from the
sea and by the time they
arrive on the Australian
coast they are rain-laden
HI ABBEY
•
mostly, the rain that hits the eastern
seabord of Australia is from easterlies.
Winds go from high to low pressure too,
and there is lower pressure over
Australia than over S. AmeMrica. The
combination of cooler easterlies and
lower pressure brings rain. This is the
NORMAL situation. But it doesn't last.
The movement of water to the left
eventually makes the sea level higher on
the left, just as a very slow-moving ripple
wave would in a bath. When it gets to a
critical height difference, about 62cms, it
wants to go the other way. Slowly the
water starts flowing to the RIGHT. Higher
pressure now is on the LEFT, above
Australia. And higher pressure flows
towards lower pressure.
WAKE UP COLIN
•
This is warmer water warmed by the sun
near Indonesia where it has been locked
in, unable to dissipate north because of
the land mass of Asia and unable to
dissIpate to the south because of
Australia. The water is joined to the air
and produces westerlies. The warmer
water arrives at Peru and is called El
Niño.
GOOD LUCK ON YOUR TEST
• The very reason it was originally called El Niño
is that just after Xmas 1982 a bunch of warm
water arrived that took fishermen by surprise.
The fishing dropped off and an algae bloom
covered the fishing area. The event was called
El Niño, which means Xmas baby, or bundle of
trouble we could do without. But the El Niño is
just a flattening out, a returning of the waters.
The normal situation lasts about 3 years. When
the normal situation reaches its maximum point
it is called La Niña. El Niños last about 1-2
years.