Rain forest.............

Rain forest.............

                 
                   Rain-forests are very dense, hot and humid forests and are home to millions of the earth’s plants and animals.  More species are found in rain-forests than any other habitat in the world.The word rain forest was first used at the end of the 19th Century to describe forests that grow in constantly wet conditions. Today, scientists define rain forests as forests that receive more than 2,000 mm of rain evenly spread throughout the year. Rain forests are the Earth's oldest living ecosystems. They are so amazing and beautiful.These incredible places cover only 6 %of the Earth's surface but yet they contain MORE THAN 1/2 of the world's plant and animal species!.

               A Rain-forest can be described as a tall, dense jungle.  The reason it is called a "rain" forest is because of the high amount of rainfall it gets per year.  The climate of a rain forest is very hot and humid so the animals and plants that exist there must learn to adapt to this climate. Rain-forests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm (68-78 inches). The monsoon trough, alternatively known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating the climatic conditions necessary for the Earth's tropical rain-forests.

    Around 40% to 75% of all biotic species are indigenous to the rainforests. It has been estimated that there may be many millions of species of plants, insects and microorganisms still undiscovered in tropical rainforests. Tropical rainforests have been called the "jewels of the Earth" and the "world's largest pharmacy", because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered there. Rainforests are also responsible for 28% of the world's oxygen turnover, sometimes misnamed oxygen production,processing it through photosynthesis from carbon dioxide and consuming it through respiration.

                  The undergrowth in a rainforest is restricted in many areas by the poor penetration of sunlight to ground level. This makes it easy to walk through undisturbed, mature rainforest. If the leaf canopy is destroyed or thinned, the ground beneath is soon colonized by a dense, tangled growth of vines, shrubs and small trees, called a jungle. There are two types of rainforest, tropical rainforest and temperate rainforest.

                  There are actually two types of rainforest. Tropical and Temperate. When most people refer to rainforests they are talking about tropical rainforests.

Tropical

                   Tropical rainforests are found around the Equator. There is very little variation between the seasons. Can you think of a reason why? They have an even distribution of rainfall annually and are warm and hot all year round.

                Tropical rainforests are characterized in two words: warm and wet. Mean monthly temperatures exceed 18 °C (64 °F) during all months of the year. Average annual rainfall is no less than 168 cm (66 in) and can exceed 1,000 cm (390 in) although it typically lies between 175 cm (69 in) and 200 cm (79 in).

                 Many of the world's rainforests are associated with the location of the monsoon trough, also known as the intertropical convergence zone. Tropical rainforests are rainforests in the tropics, found in the equatorial zone (between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn). Tropical rainforest is present in Southeast Asia (from Myanmar (Burma) to Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and northeastern Australia), Sri Lanka, sub-Saharan Africa from Cameroon to the Congo (Congo Rainforest), South America (e.g. the Amazon Rainforest), Central America (e.g. Bosawás, southern Yucatán Peninsula-El Peten-Belize-Calakmul), and on many of the Pacific Islands (such as Hawaiʻi). Tropical rainforests have been called the "Earth's lungs", although it is now known that rainforests contribute little net oxygen addition to the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

Temperate

                   Temperate rainforests are found further away from the equator. They have two seasons: a wet season and a dry season. The temperature varies much more than a tropical rainforest.

                   Temperate forests cover a large part of the globe, but temperate rainforests only occur in few regions around the world. Temperate rainforests are rainforests in temperate regions. 

                   They occur in North America (in the Pacific Northwest, the British Columbia Coast and in the inland rainforest of the Rocky Mountain Trench east of Prince George), in Europe (parts of the British Isles such as the coastal areas of Ireland and Scotland, southern Norway, parts of the western Balkans along the Adriatic coast, as well as in the North West of Spainand coastal areas of the eastern Black Sea, including Georgia and coastal Turkey), in East Asia (in southern China, Taiwan, much ofJapan and Korea, and on Sakhalin Island and the adjacent Russian Far East coast), in South America (southern Chile) and also inAustralia and New Zealand.

More Rainforest Facts!

• The Amazon Rainforest is the largest rainforest in the world, It covers an area of about 3 million square miles – that’s about 60 times bigger than the whole of England!

• Although they cover less than 2 percent of the Earth’s total surface area, the world’s rainforests are estimated to be home to half of the Earth’s plants and animals.

• Rainforests are the “lungs of our planet”. It is estimated that more than 20 percent of Earth’s oxygen is produced in the Amazon Rainforest.

• Because there is so much sunlight, heat and water – trees have the resources to grow to tremendous heights, and they live for hundreds, even thousands, of years.