What are some cool facts about the tundra?
Tundra is the coldest of all the biomes. Tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturi, meaning treeless plain. It is noted for its frost-molded landscapes, extremely low temperatures, little precipitation, poor nutrients, and short growing seasons. Dead organic material functions as a nutrient pool.
Where is the tundra facts?
Arctic tundra are found on high-latitude landmasses, above the Arctic Circle—in Alaska, Canada, Russia, Greenland, Iceland, and Scandinavia, for example—or on far southern regions, like Antarctica. Alpine tundra are located at very high elevations atop mountains, where overnight temperatures fall below freezing.
How cold is the arctic tundra?
-30 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit
The Arctic tundra, where the average temperature is -30 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-34 to -6 degrees Celsius), supports a variety of animal species, including Arctic foxes, polar bears, gray wolves, caribou, snow geese, and musk oxen.
What makes the Arctic tundra unique?
The Arctic tundra has low precipitation (less than 10 inches per year) and dry winds. These conditions make the Arctic tundra a desert-like climate (see climograph). One unique characteristic of the Arctic tundra is permafrost–ground that is permanently frozen. The surface layer above the permafrost thaws each summer.
How big is the Arctic tundra?
approximately 11.5 million km2
The arctic tundra biome is the northernmost biome. It covers the lands north of the Arctic Circle up to the polar ice cap. It reaches as far south as the Hudson Bay area of Canada and the northern part of Iceland. It covers approximately 11.5 million km2.
How long ago was the tundra formed?
It was formed 10,000 years ago, and covers about 20% of the Earth’s surface. It is one of the coldest and driest biomes. The ground can support low growing plants likes lichen and mosses. The main season in the tundra are winter and summer and spiring and fall are very short.
How much snow does the arctic tundra get?
Over most of the Arctic tundra, annual precipitation, measured as liquid water, amounts to less than 38 cm (15 inches), roughly two-thirds of it falling as summer rain. The remainder falls in expanded form as snow, which can reach total accumulations of 64 cm (25 inches) to (rarely) more than 191 cm (75 inches).
How long is summer in the arctic tundra?
It is cold through all months of the year Summer is a brief period of milder climates when the sun shines almost 24 hours a day. It has been called “the land of the midnight sun”. But even the sun can’t warm the tundra much. The short summer lasts only 6 to 10 weeks.
What is the main prey in the tundra?
Resident animals have to change what they are hunting and eating as the seasons change. The food chain in the Arctic Tundra consists of predators such as owls, foxes, wolves, and polar bears at the top of the chain. Predators hunt herbivores, plant eating animals, such as caribou, lemmings, and hares.
Do vultures live in the tundra?
Birds. Birds account for much of the tundra’s relatively minimal biodiversity. Ravens and gulls, two true scavengers, live in tundra environments, while famed scavengers such as vultures and crows do not.