Climate & Natural Vegetation

• Climate is shaped by 7 factors: latitude, altitude, continentality, ocean currents, aspect, prevailing winds, and pressure systems.
• The equatorial climate is hot and wet all year round — no seasons — because it sits under permanent low pressure.
• The hot desert climate is hot and dry with huge temperature swings, because it sits under permanent high pressure at 15°–30° N/S.
• The tropical rainforest (TRF) ecosystem has the highest biodiversity on Earth, a rapid nutrient cycle, and infertile soil — because nutrients live in the plants, not the ground.
• The hot desert ecosystem has low biodiversity, a slow nutrient cycle, and nutrients stored mostly in the soil (not the plants).
• Plants and animals in both biomes show clear adaptations to survive extreme heat, extreme dryness, or intense competition for light.
• Deforestation has environmental, social, and economic causes and effects — you need real case study detail (Malaysia) to score top marks.
• Hot desert ecosystems face their own human threats — tourism, mining, agriculture, poaching (Namib Desert case study).

Before you can explain any single climate, you need the toolbox of 7 reasons climate differs from place to place. Think of these as dials — turn each one and you change the temperature or rainfall of a location.

The 7 Climate Controls

Deforestation