A desert grows cactus, a rainforest drips with vines, tundra grows almost nothing — because each place gets different heat and rain. Climate sets the stage, and the biome is the cast of life that can survive on it.
Patterns across the map
Weather is what happens day to day; climate is the average pattern over many years. Climate shapes biomes — large regions defined by their plants, animals, and conditions, such as tropical rainforest, desert, grassland, and tundra. Where a place sits on the globe strongly influences its climate.
Near the equator, sunlight is direct and it stays warm; toward the poles, sunlight is spread thin and it stays cold. That is why tropical rainforests hug the equator and tundra rings the poles.
The Sahara (desert) and the Amazon (rainforest) lie at similar longitudes but differ in rainfall and wind patterns, producing utterly different biomes.
- A region sits far from the equator, near the Arctic Circle.
- Recall how latitude affects temperature.
- Name the cold, treeless biome likely found there.
What you should see: High latitude means thin sunlight and cold — the biome is tundra, cold and treeless.