![]() ![]() Sunlight hits Earth here at an angle and must pass through more atmosphere. One is the polar climate, which has an average July temperature of not more than 50☏ (10☌). Several characteristics are typical of Arctic tundra. Alpine tundra forms on mountaintops where the proper conditions exist. Arctic tundra is found near the Arctic Circle. There are two types of tundra: Arctic and alpine. During the Ice Ages more than 10,000 years ago, glaciers scraped away any soil, leaving only bare rock. The lack of soil in a tundra region may be due to erosion (wearing away) from wind and rain. ![]() On high mountains, tundra forms when the location is right to produce the necessary climate. In the Arctic, winters are long and cold, and summers are short and cool. Tundra forms primarily because of climate. Tussocks: Small clumps of vegetation found in marshy tundra areas. Thermokarst: Shallow lakes in the Arctic tundra formed by melting permafrost also called thaw lakes. Soredia: Algae cells with a few strands of fungus around them. Rhizomes: Plant stems that spread out underground and grow into a new plant that breaks above the surface of the soil or water. Pingos: Small hills formed when groundwater freezes. Permafrost: Permanently frozen topsoil found in northern regions. ![]() Peat: A type of soil formed from slightly decomposed plants and animals. Hypothermia: A lowering of the body temperature that can result in death. The Arctic is called the Land of the Midnight Sun because, during the summer, the sun never sets below the horizon and daylight lasts for twenty-four hours. The Aurora Borealis occurs when energy-charged particles from the sun enter Earth’s atmosphere and create flashes of light. Winter nights last for weeks and are often lit up by the blue, red, and green colors of the Aurora Borealis, or northern lights. The tundra may seem bleak and unfriendly, but it can be a place of eerie beauty, especially in the Arctic during the winter. (An area with high biodiversity supports a wide variety of plants and animals.) Only a few species of plants and animals live in the tundra, but those few, such as lichens and mosquitoes, are found in great numbers. The tundra is not an environment with high biodiversity. Conditions are seldom right for tundra to form there. Antarctica is much colder than the Arctic and the ground is usually covered by ice. Almost all tundra is located in the Northern Hemisphere (the half of Earth above the equator) small areas do exist in Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere. Tundra covers about 20 percent of Earth’s surface. During the brief spring and summer, flowers burst into bloom with the warmth of the sun, dotting the landscape with color. In this cold, dry, windy region where trees cannot grow, the often bare and rocky ground supports only hardy, low-growing plants, such as mosses, sedges, heaths, and plantlike lichens (LY-kens), which give it a greenish-brown color. The word tundra comes from a Finnish word tunturia, which means barren land. In the northern lands close to the Arctic, and on the upper slopes of high mountains all over the world, a unique biome called the tundra is found. ![]()
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