18.2 - Africa Climate and Vegetation

Climate and vegetation in Africa, focusing on deserts and rain forests.

1. Africa:Africa:
Climate and VegetationClimate and Vegetation

2. Africa, in case you forgot what it looks like:

3. It’s a warm place
with warm climates.

4. Compare

5. Deserts
•The big one is the Sahara Desert (‘Sahara’ means
‘desert’ in Arabic).
•It’s the largest non-polar desert in the world; it covers
nearly 1.8 million square miles.
•That’s about 60% the size of
the continental United States.

7. •Temperatures can get up to around 140 degrees during
the daytime in the summer and yet still dip below
freezing at night in the winter.

10. •While it looks pretty sandy, only 20% of the desert is
actual sand. The rest rocky or gravely.
•Rain is scarce. It averages less than an inch of rain
per year and many places get nothing.
•It does, however, have massive underground
aquifers that give rise to oases. This one is in
Libya.

12. •The Sahara was actually one of the earliest places to
be farmed. Thousands of years ago, it wasn’t as dry
as it is now. It only really turned into a desert about
5,000 years ago.
•Sand and dust storms can be a problem. In fact, the
dust can blow nearly all the way to the Americas.

13. •The locals dress in long loose robes that help
cooling and wear head coverings that keep out the
sand and dust. They also ride camels, which can
conserve water, and have other specialized
structures for the desert.

14. •Tourists ride them too.

15. •There’s also the Kalahari, which is only kind of a desert.
It actually gets sporadic rainfall and has some
vegetation and animal life.

17. Adorable meerkats live here too.

19. Grasslands
•Tropical grasslands
cover most of the
continent.
•These areas aren’t
good for trees (they’re
too dry and the soil
can be hard), but they
are ideal for grasses.
•The Serengeti Plain is
a good example of
these grasslands.

22. Rain forest
•The rain forests in
Africa are mainly
located along the
equator in the
Congo Basin.

23. •Like all rainforests, it
has thick, diverse
vegetation and trees.
•The trees form a
canopy that blocks
out the sun to the
area below it.
•The canopy can be
150 feet in the air.

24. Bridges through the
canopy

25. •Critters
•Among the animals that live in the rainforest are…

26. •The flying fox, which
is actually a bat.

27. •Birds – this is the African Grey Parrot

28. •And the Gaboon viper.
•It can weigh 18 pounds, have fangs two inches, be
nearly 6 feet long.