- (C) The taiga, also known as boreal forest, is the world’s largest land biome,
and makes up almost a third of the world’s forest cover with the largest areas
located in Russia and Canada. The taiga has a subarctic climate with very
large temperature ranges between seasons, but the long and cold winter is
the dominant feature.
FREE-RESPONSE ANSWER
10 Total Points Possible
(a) (i) 2 point maximum. 1 point for correct information about temperature
and 1 point for correct information about precipitation.Describe the climate you might expect to find on your trip to the
tropical rainforest.Possible answers might include the following points: ■ Temperature
is warm to hot and varies little throughout the year.
■ The sun warms the land and sea, and the water evaporates into the
air. The warm air can hold a lot of water vapor. As the air rises, it
cools (i.e., it can hold less water vapor). Then, as warm air meets
cold, condensation takes place, the vapor forms droplets, and
clouds form, producing rain.
■ Precipitation is evenly distributed throughout the year with the
water cycle repeating often. In other climates, the evaporation is
carried away to fall as rain in far-off areas, but in the rainforests,
50% of the precipitation comes from its own evaporation.
■ Air is humid because of the large amount of rainfall and warm air
temperature (warm air can hold more water vapor than cold air).(a) (ii) 2 points maximum. 1 point for description of trees found in the tropical
rainforest and 1 point for description of plants.Describe what type of vegetation is found in a tropical rainforest.Possible answers might include the following points: ■ The length of
sunlight is about 12 hours per day (because of the location near the
equator), resulting in a high amount of photosynthetic activity and a
great amount of plant life.
■ Biotic diversity is high. Rainforests cover less than 2% of Earth’s