1. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Climate vs. Weather
Climate is the long-term weather patterns of a place.
Weather describes what the atmosphere is like at a given time and place.
Scientists find the climate of an area by averaging weather conditions over 30 years or more.
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2. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Hot, Cold, and Medium
A climate zone is an area that has similar average temperatures and precipitation throughout.
Three of Earth’s climate zones are tropical, temperate, and polar.
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3. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Hot, Cold, and Medium
The tropical, temperate, and polar climate zones are based on distance from the equator.
The equator is the imaginary line that divides Earth into its northern and southern hemispheres, or halves.
An area’s latitude, or distance from the equator, determines what climate zone it is in.
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4. Hot, Cold, and Medium Tropical climates are found near the equator.
Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Hot, Cold, and Medium
Tropical climates are found near the equator.
The sun is directly overhead nearly all year. As a result, the area gets a lot of direct heat.
Temperatures in tropical climates are typically greater than 18 °C.
Tropical climates get different amounts of precipitation.
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5. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Hot, Cold, and Medium
Temperate climates are found in the middle latitudes.
For most of the year, a temperate climate has temperatures between 10 °C and 18 °C.
Most temperate climates have four seasons.
Temperate climates get different amounts of precipitation.
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6. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Hot, Cold, and Medium
Polar climates are farthest from the equator. They are found near Earth’s poles.
Polar climates get little precipitation. They are covered in snow and ice year-round.
Temperatures in polar climates are typically less than 10 °C.
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7. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Hot, Cold, and Medium
Identify the tropical, temperature, and polar climate zones on the map below.
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8. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Why Climates Differ
Distance from the equator, elevation, closeness to bodies of water, and landforms affect climate.
Locations near the equator are warm, but high elevations can make the climate cooler.
Snowy mountaintops can be found in tropical places because of elevation.
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9. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Why Climates Differ
Water heats up and cools down more slowly than land does.
Places near the coast are often cooler in summer and warmer in winter than places far away from the ocean.
The Gulf Stream is a current of warm ocean water that affects the climate in North America and Europe.
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10. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Why Climates Differ
A rain-shadow effect can happen when wet air rises and falls on the ocean side of a mountain, creating a wet climate.
As the air moves down the other side of the mountain, it is dry. This creates a dry climate, or rain shadow.
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11. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Why Climates Differ
Describe the type of climate that occurs on each side of the mountain in the diagram below.
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12. Climate and the Environment
Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Climate and the Environment
Climate affects where organisms can live.
Climate affects the nonliving parts of the environment.
Rain, wind, temperature, and other factors can affect the land surfaces and the types of organisms that can live in the area.
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13. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Desert
A desert is a dry environment with temperatures that vary greatly.
Living things in deserts need to be able to survive with little water.
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14. Swamps Swamps can be fresh water, salt water, or both.
Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Swamps
Swamps can be fresh water, salt water, or both.
Swamps occur in places where the ground cannot soak in all the water that reaches the area.
Temperatures can be very high in swamps for part of the year.
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15. Unit 3 Lesson 6 What Factors Affect Climate?
Tropical Rain Forests
Tropical rain forests are found in warm, wet climates.
The amount of sunlight in tropical rain forests is nearly the same year-round.
Vegetation covers most of the land in tropical rain forests.
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