AMAZON RAINFOREST

Start to finish

Amazon river facts

• Starts in the Peruvian Andes

• 4080 miles in length• Most water comes

from snow• Averges 9 feet of rain

water per year

2.5 million different insects

Pink Dolphin

Canopy

• THE TOP, OVERLAPPING BRANCHES AND LEAVES OF RFOREST

• 70-90% OF ALL LIFE• DRIER /HOTTER

DURING DAY• ANIMALS MUST ADAPT

TRIBUTARIES

• IS A STREAM OR RIVER THAT FEEDS THE MAIN PART OF THE RIVER

PEOPLE OF THE AMAZON

• VERY FEW INDIGENOUS PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW THEIR OLD TRADITIONS STILL REMAIN

• MODERN TIMES HAVE HIT THE AMAZON??

BENEFITS OF THE RAINFORESTS• “Lungs of the earth” -provides 20% of

Earth’s oxygen

• Home to ½ of Earth’s plant & animal species

• Regulates Earth’s climate

• Offers cures for diseases

WHAT’S HAPPENING TO IT? -1.5 acres per second being destroyed

WHY?• Logging -furniture and paper goods

• Housing -to relieve overcrowded cities

• Natural Resources -iron ore, oil

• Farming / ranching -slash-and-burn clearing

2.

1.

SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE

• Growing just enough food for your family to survive

-little left over to sell

PRICE OF DESTRUCTION

• Global warming

• Loss of plant & animal species

• Destruction of native tribes

• Loss of cures for illness / disease

SOLUTIONS• Educate people about the rainforest

• Debt for nature swap

=• Sustainable Development

La Nina and El Nino

• La Nina is the normal situation

Consider the Pacific as being in a rectangle, with a left and a right side. On the left is Indonesia and Australia and NZ. On the right is South America.

This is so much fun!!• Cold water comes up from the depths

of Antarctica and travels up beside Peru. It brings nutrients up to the surface and the fishing is good. In the air above is warmer equatorial high pres-sure. It pushes down onto the waters, onto the cooler currents emerging from below. When you push down on water in the bath it slides out from under your hand, and in the bath having nowhere else to go, it causes a ripple wave which goes to the other end of the bath. It is the same with the Pacific. Higher pressure goes to lower pressure. With the land of S and N America blocking the right side, the current is forced (by the high pressure in the air) to go LEFT.

More fun!

• As the water goes left, so does the air. Why? Because the surface of the ocean is joined to the bottom of the air. Now the water is an easterly current going to the west, and so is the air, and this produces easterly winds. Easterly winds bring moisture from the sea and by the time they arrive on the Australian coast they are rain-laden

HI ABBEY• mostly, the rain that hits the eastern

seabord of Australia is from easterlies. Winds go from high to low pressure too, and there is lower pressure over Australia than over S. AmeMrica. The combination of cooler easterlies and lower pressure brings rain. This is the NORMAL situation. But it doesn't last. The movement of water to the left eventually makes the sea level higher on the left, just as a very slow-moving ripple wave would in a bath. When it gets to a critical height difference, about 62cms, it wants to go the other way. Slowly the water starts flowing to the RIGHT. Higher pressure now is on the LEFT, above Australia. And higher pressure flows towards lower pressure.

WAKE UP COLIN• This is warmer water warmed by the sun

near Indonesia where it has been locked in, unable to dissipate north because of the land mass of Asia and unable to dissIpate to the south because of Australia. The water is joined to the air and produces westerlies. The warmer water arrives at Peru and is called El Niño.

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR TEST

• The very reason it was originally called El Niño is that just after Xmas 1982 a bunch of warm water arrived that took fishermen by surprise. The fishing dropped off and an algae bloom covered the fishing area. The event was called El Niño, which means Xmas baby, or bundle of trouble we could do without. But the El Niño is just a flattening out, a returning of the waters. The normal situation lasts about 3 years. When the normal situation reaches its maximum point it is called La Niña. El Niños last about 1-2 years.