Transcript Slide 1

Extreme Climates
An extreme climate is a place with extreme rainfall or temperature
conditions that limit fauna numbers and flora growth
LIST PLANTS AND ANIMALS
ANIMAL ADAPTATION CASE STUDY
Where are deserts and
drylands located?
FACTFILE
What is the hottest place on earth?
What is the biggest desert?
PLANT ADAPTATION CASE STUDY
What is the driest place?
Knowledge Checker
Key Question:
What are the challenges
of extreme
environments?
Self assess your progress and target areas for revision!
What do I need to know?
- The location of one named extreme environment
- How the flora and fauna are successfully adapted to survive in chosen extreme
environment
- How people are successfully adapted to survive in chosen extreme environment
How can extreme
environments be
managed and protected
from the threats they
face?
- Why the culture of peoples living in extreme environments is unique and
extremely valuable
- What threats there are to people and the natural systems of chosen extreme
environment
- How climate change could threaten the people and the natural systems of
chosen extreme environment
- How intermediate technology (local actions) can help people to adapt to their
changing environments
- What impact the role of global actions might have in protecting chosen extreme
environments from climate change
RAG
Desert Plants and Animals
How are the flora and fauna of deserts adapted to
survive in such extreme conditions?
Key term
Definition
Examples
Succulence
The ability to
retain or store
water.
Aloe – stores water inside its fleshy
leaves.
Camel – stores water and fat inside
its hump.
Drought
Tolerance
The ability to
tolerate drought
conditions.
Eucalyptus – waxy leaves minimise
water loss.
American Jackrabbit – large ears with
capillaries close to the skin allow
blood to be cooled by the breeze as it
circulates.
Drought
Avoidance
The ability to
avoid drought.
Creosote Bush – survives one
season, rapid life cycle, dies quickly
after seeding to avoid dry season.
The Bilby – burrows deep into the
ground to find cooler and moister
conditions.
Pictures
HUMAN PLANET
800 million people live in the desert – how do they survive?
Gobi Desert
Atacama Desert
Sahara Desert
HUMAN SURVIVAL
Explain how people have developed different ways of surviving in the
desert.
Feature
Describe
Explain how these help people to survive:
Buildings
Flat roofs
White walls
Small windows
Air conditioning
Flat roofs can be used to collect water, helping people to survive drought.
White walls reflect the sunlight keeping buildings cool. Small windows reduce
the amount of sunlight entering buildings, therefore keeping the temperatures
inside low. In richer areas (e.g. Texas, USA) air conditioning can be used to
keep buildings cool.
Transport
Camels
Off-road vehicles
Farming
Methods
Irrigation using rivers
Dams
Nomadic pastorialism –
moving animal herds
frequently
Clothing
Loose-fitting
Light colours
Headscarves
HUMAN UNIQUENESS AND VALUE
About Sourcing water
As anyone who has done a survival course can tell you, we can survive weeks without food but only a matter of days
without water. Of course, many of us are lucky enough to have water on tap, but according to the UN, only 42% of people in
rural areas had access to clean water in 2004. For those people, sourcing water can take a great deal of effort and
ingenuity.
The Hamar of Ethiopia, for example, must walk long distances in gruelling temperatures to get water from their nearest
wells. And that’s not the hardest part. The hardest part is carrying the water back for the other villagers since water is
anything but light.
In fact, water is so heavy that carrying it any great distance is often a very inefficient way to keep yourself topped up. When
women and children from the Tubu tribe of Niger set off across the desert for market, they know that the walk will take
them eight days in temperatures that can exceed 45C. They also know that the only way to survive is by remembering the
location of a single well along the way, their only lifeline in a sea of emptiness.
Relying on the navigational skills passed down by their mothers, the women must take their bearings from the stars and
read the shapes of the sand dunes. But take one wrong turn in these ever-shifting sands and death may be just around the
corner.
In Kenya, the Samburu people don’t rely on themselves to find water when the river runs dry, but on the skills of wild
elephants. Since the elephants have an amazing ability to detect underground water, the Sumburu keep close tabs on them
and then take their water from the shallow wells that the elephants leave open for them. Back in their village, the Samburu
thanks the elephants by filling troughs which they leave out for thirsty animals. It is part of their belief system that no living
thing should suffer the agony of dying from lack of water, especially those animals who help to keep the herdsmen and their
families alive.
But while some people must go in search of water, others like the Chileans of the Atacama Desert have learned to wait for
it to come to them. As the wind blows across the Pacific, it draws up water from the sea until it becomes a thick fog. When
the fog then hits the desert coastline it is trapped by lichen on cacti and condenses into water that is drunk by the local
animals. Inspired by this, local people now set down huge nets that line the hills and trap the fog as it rolls across the
desert. As the fog condenses, the precious liquid runs through pipes that lead down to the grateful villages below. As usual,
Mother Nature has all the best tricks.
HUMAN UNIQUENESS AND VALUE
How
do
you
get
water
?
How do they get water?
Chilean's in the Atacama Desert
Tubu women, Niger
Digging for water, Algeria
Why is their knowledge and techniques so valuable?
THREATS
What are the threats to the people and the natural systems of the desert?
Why is this the biggest threat to the people / natural systems in the Sahel?
Think back to HUMAN PLANET. How will
the people living in the Sahel we saw in the
programme be affected by increased
temperatures and decreased rainfall as a
result of climate change?
Why is this the smallest threat to the people / natural systems in the Sahel?
The graph above shows the yearly variation from average rainfall in the
Sahel. Is the situation getting better or worse?
How will culture be affected by
decreasing rainfall in the Sahel?
If these people can’t stay in the
Sahel, where will they go?
The dry season leaves these pools full of
fish, but if it gets warmer, will there be any
fish?
The Tubu women already travel for days to
get to market – keep to their tribe’s survival
– and the only way they can get there is by
making a stop at one isolated water hole.
How will climate change affect them?
How could climate
change threaten
people and natural
systems of the
Sahel?
The dried up desert below is in Texas, but is
Lake Banzena, where human’s race
elephants for water, next?
Think about the PHYSICAL EFFECTS of
climate change and then the HUMAN
EFFECTS of these...
PROTECTING AND MANAGING THE DESERT
Diguettes in Burkina Faso
- A diguette is a line of stones, laid along the natural
contours of the farmland.
-The small walls slow the flow of the rainwater, giving it
a chance to soak into the ground.
-They also trap soil limiting soil degradation at the same
time.
-Over 400 villages in Burkina Faso use diguettes as
they are proven to improve crop yields.
What evidence exists that the Sahel will
be affected by climate change?
-70% of Africa’s population rely on farming;
climate change is expected to reduce crop
yields by at least 10%.
- Food emergencies in Africa have tripled in
the last 20 years.
-Increased drought could lead to a
humanitarian disaster.
Kyoto Protocol, 1997
-International agreement setting targets for
industrialised nations to cut their carbon
emissions
-Based on framework drawn up in 1992,
agreed in 1997 and finally made legally
binding in 2005.
GLOBAL
Exam Style Question:
Using examples, explain how people can overcome problems of drought in one extreme environment you have studied (6 marks)
Extreme Exam Questions!
Question:
Describe how people’s
clothing helps them survive
in an area of extreme
climate you have studied.
(3 marks)
Describe how building styles
are adapted to the extreme
climate you have studied
(3 marks)
Choose one extreme
environment. Describe one
threat that it faces on
account of human activity
(2 marks)
My answer:
Good luck surviving these extreme exam questions!