African Climate
Transcript of African Climate
African Climate
The role of Latitude in climate
• Tropics: the area between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn
The Role of Elevation in Climate
• The coolest regions are found in the highlands
Alternating Wet and Dry Seasons
• The further away from the equator, the shorter the rainy season.
Seasons are reversed north and south of the equator
Tropical Wet Climate Region
• Rain forest • Leaching: rains
dissolve and wash away nutrients from the soil
• Insects, disease
Steppe Climate
• Also called semi-arid
• Transition between tropical wet and tropical dry
Tropical Dry • Savanna • Covers half of Africa • Drought: prolonged
periods of little or no rainfall
• Desertification: the turning of semidesert land into desert
• Sahel=Steppe
Desert
• Sahara: crisscrossed with trade routes
• Kalahari: not as dry
• Namib: Watered only by ocean mist
Mediterranean Climate
• Southern tip and northern coast
• Mild climate, fertile soils
• European settlers
Climate and Health
• Malaria
• Tsetse fly - sleeping sickness
• AIDS
Population Patterns
• Africa is not densely populated
Lifestyles
• Farming • Herding • Fishing • Hunting and
gathering • urban
Languages
• 1,000 languages spoken in Africa
• Niger-Congo family of languages
• Swahili: Arabic and Bantu